Nurses’ information and their view points about patient’s rights and practical facilitators in clinics

Abstract

Background & Aim: Nurses can support the patients’ rights advocacy, if they are informed of these rights. Furthermore in order to exercise and protect of these rights, the working environment should be appropriate. Methods & Materials: The aim of this descriptive analytical study was to explore the nurses’ awareness of patients’ rights in Tehran teaching hospitals and the facilitators of observing theses rights from their perspective. To achieve this, 517 nurses were selected using multi stage stratified sampling method. Data were gathered utilizing a researcher made questionnaire with 3o statements regarding patients’ bill of rights, and an open question about patients’ rights facilitators at the end. Results: The findings indicated that overall nurses had a high level of awareness regard patients’ rights. In addition nurses mentioned 17 factors as facilitators of patients’ rights practice. These were classified to three groups: organization related, personnel related and client/ patient related factors. The most frequent items were in the group of organization related factors. Conclusion: Despite of nurses’ high awareness of patients’ rights, observing these rights in practice needs many other requirements. These requirements should be recognized and identified. This can be the first step for finding proper solutions by all health care providers and policy makers as well.