There has been an ongoing global effort to place “risk” and “safety” at the center of all levels of healthcare systems, institutions, and service management. Leading nations in safe medicine such as Australia, United States, the United Kingdom, and Denmark have been emphasizing patient safety since the 1970s. Especially, US Institute of Medicine emphasized the meaningful use of technology and information in progressing from “To Err Is Human,” a 1999 report, to “Health IT and Patient Safety,” a 2011 report. At the core of this meaningful use lies patient safety.

South Korea has fallen behind for studies on risk or safety in healthcare. Although there is no doubt that recent efforts placing greater importance on patient safety and quality improvement in health care since hospital accreditation program has led the expansion of related activities, they are still in their infancy. This is evidenced by the fact that the academic society regarding patient safety was not founded till March 2013. Legal standards, the “Patient Safety Act” built on the establishment of a patient safety system and prevention of recurrence of patient safety incidents, only passed the Korean National Assembly in December 2014. 

Effective communication is especially important in patient safety. Experts in patient safety need to answer not about what people have to know but about what people want to know based on the public’s concerns, awareness, and experience-based knowledge.

A review of studies related to patient safety perception in Korea showed that most of studies performed focused on the perception of health professionals working in the hospitals, especially nurses. However, most of these studies only identified levels of awareness regarding patient safety culture or analyzed the relationships between variables related to patient safety culture. Studies on the differences in awareness between medical professionals and actual hospital users in regards to hospital safety are still lacking.

Therefore, the present study considered it problematic that studies on healthcare users to this point have been limited only to satisfaction or intention surveys, as compared to those conducted on healthcare providers. This study aimed to provide more comprehensive information by also investigating awareness in the context of the environment in which healthcare is being provided and utilized. 

The study also aimed to unravel the implications of the study by taking surveys performed on the general public and health professionals coincidentally for comparing and reviewing the difference between two groups. This could identify response strategies and resolution measures for hospital safety risk awareness.