Significance of Patient Safety and Safety Culture in Dental Schools: A Systematic Review

This article aims to systematically review and analyze the outcome of published literature on patient safety and safety culture related to dental schools. It also aims to observe implemented changes in dental school training and curriculum that have improved patient safety and safety culture within institutions.

All studies concerning patient safety and safety culture from the period of January 2010 to May 2020 were included which were specific to dental educational institution settings. The assessment was based on the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis) checklist to ascertain that the included studies were specific to the objective of our systematic review.

The included studies were assessed for country-wise publication, type of study, and its outcome. Of the 10 studies that met the inclusion criteria, 5 articles were related to patient safety. 2 out of the 5 articles were from the United States of America (USA) 2 were from the United Kingdom (UK), followed by 1 from Mexico. For articles related to safety culture, 3 out of the 5 articles were from Saudi Arabia, and 2 were from the USA.

The analysis of the selected review articles suggests that rigorous training should be implemented in inpatient record documentation, incident reporting, and infection control protocols. The authors suggested focused training on patient safety culture and the inclusion of safety culture awareness and training to the dental undergraduate curriculum.