The concept of errors in medical education: a scoping review

AbstractThe purpose of this scoping review was to explore how errors are conceptualized in medical education contexts by examining different error perspectives and practices. This review used a scoping methodology with a systematic search strategy to identify relevant studies, written in English, and published before January 2021. Four medical education journals (Medical Education, Advances in Health Science Education, Medical Teacher, and Academic Medicine) and four clinical journals (Journal of the American Medical Association, Journal of General Internal Medicine, Annals of Surgery, and British Medical Journal) were purposively selected. Data extraction was charted according to a data collection form. Of 1505 screened studies, 79 studies were included. Three overarching perspectives were identified: ‘understanding errors ’) (n  = 31), ‘avoiding errors ’ (n  = 25), ‘learning from errors ’ (n  = 23). Studies that aimed at’understanding errors’ used qualitative methods (19/31, 61.3%) and took place in the clinical setting (19/31, 61.3%), whereas studies that aimed at ‘avoiding errors’ and ‘learning from errors’ used quantitative methods (‘avoiding errors’: 20/25, 80%, and ‘learning from errors’: 16/23, 69.6%,p = 0.007) and took place in pre-clinical (14/25, 56%) and simulated settings (10/23, 43.5%), respectively (p <  0.001). The three perspectives differed significantly in terms of inclusion of educational theory: ‘Un...

Source: Advances in Health Sciences Education - February 21, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: research