Nursing students' handling patient safety incidents during clinical practice: A retrospective qualitative study

Background: Nursing students may encounter patient safety incidents during clinical practice. Understanding the challenges and concerns of nursing students in handling with patient safety incident could contribute to informing nursing education and clinical practice training. Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate how nursing students handle patient safety incidents during clinical practice. Design: A retrospective descriptive qualitative study. Setting: Nursing school in Slovenia. Participants: A snowball sampling technique was used to recruit nursing students (n = 15). Methods: Data were collected via guided self-reflection diaries in 2021. Collected data were analysed using thematic analysis. Results: We have generated the main theme of nursing students' handling patient safety incidents during clinical practice. The four primary thematic subthemes were: (1) emotional responses; (2) patient safety incident occurrence and actions taken; (3) contributing factors; and (4) consequences. Conclusions: Our study highlights nursing students' handling of patient safety incidents during clinical practice, revealing a spectrum of emotional responses, immediate actions, contributing factors, consequences, and the importance of fostering a non-blaming culture through reporting and effective communication.