A qualitative study of patient competence for patient engagement in their safety——from the perspective of nurses and patients

To describe the essential competencies required for patient engagement in their own safety.

We adopted a phenomenological approach in qualitative research to conduct semi-structured interviews with nurses (n = 14) and adult patients (n = 13) from different departments. By deeply exploring their experiences and feelings about patient engagement in patient safety, we sought to understand their views on the qualities that patients need to possess in order to participate in their own safety.

From the interviews, we identified six major themes, including competence of information sharing, competence of taking patient engagement as responsibility and right, competence of making equal communication, competence of maintaining trust relationship with health personnels, competence of accepting non-punitive safety culture, need of resource support, five of them showed essential competences for patients and one of them showed patients’ need for promoting their engagement.

The findings of this study show necessary competence and needs in patient engagement process of patient, offer a foundational reference for constructing a measurement tool for patient engagement in patient safety competence in the future, so that medical staff and patients can provide reference for the future targeted construction of patient competence improvement programs. At the same time, improving patient competence and engagement to better achieve safety goals requires the joint efforts of patients, medical staff, medical institutions, the government, and society.