The role of prescribing safety assessment on prescribing readiness of medical students in Malaysia

Introduction: Many interventions in terms of training and curriculum enhancement have been introduced to reduce prescribing errors among doctors. One such initiative is the introduction of Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA) which is a learning module that enhances pharmacological and therapeutics knowledge. However, the benefits of PSA have not been evaluated in Malaysian context before. This study aimed to determine the role of the PSA module on self-perceived prescribing knowledge and competency among medical students. Methods: A cross-sectional comparative study design was used in which two groups of medical students from different cohorts were asked to fill in an online questionnaire regarding their competency and confidence in the area of prescribing. These groups consisted of 5th year medical students who had undergone the PSA module (n=52) and who did not have any exposure to PSA module (n=54). Independent T-test was used to compare the mean values of answers for each of the questions from both cohorts to determine significance. Results: The mean data showed that the respondents from both groups tended to ‘agree’ to have sufficient prescribing knowledge in drugs. Respondents from both groups generally agreed to be confident in prescribing skills. Conclusion: The respondents in our study generally perceive themselves to be both competent and confident in their prescribing skills. There was no obvious distinction between those who had undergone the PSA module and those who had not.