Medical students' situational motivation to participate in simulation based team training is predicted by attitudes to patient safety.

In order to enable safe practice and professionalism in healthcare, students' engagement in patient safety education is important. Our finding that students' patient safety attitudes show a positive correlation to motivation and that intrinsic motivation increases after training underpins patient safety climate and integrated teaching of patient safety issues at medical schools in order to help students develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes required for safe practice.