Introduction:

Patient safety is a priority of health systems worldwide and therefore, the education institutions responsible for the formation of human resources for health must address this goal in detail.

Objective:

To identify the perceptions of baccalaureate nursing students regarding patient safety.

Methodology:

This is a descriptive and transversal study on 516 baccalaureates in nursing students from the Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas, Mexico. The APQS-III and a specific social-demographic data questionnaire were used.

Results:

The majority of the participants were female. The average age was 20 years old. Nearly half of the students do not have enough courses to strengthen their knowledge on patient safety. Regarding the training received, 63.5 % of the participants agree that the baccalaureate level formation prepares them to understand the causes of adverse events in nursing, to prevent errors, and to have an adequate understanding of security. 50.3 % of the participants approved the dimension’s confidence approach regarding error reporting. Many participants considered that the excessive long hours working dimension is a cause of errors.

Discussion:

The perception of patient safety as being very important favors and further promotes a culture of security.

Conclusions:

The majority of the students trust their training regarding patient safety and know how to prevent possible causes of errors.