Preventive Care in Nursing and Midwifery Journal (Sep 2011)
Awareness of Nurses about Patients’ Rights and the Extent They Respect It
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Patients’ rights are the patients’ expectations from health services. Patients’ rights declaration is to protect individuals’ rights in order to be ensured, in case of being sick they will receive enough qualified care in a respectful context regardless of their age, gender, and economic situation. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of nurses’ awareness from patients’ rights and the extent to which they respect such rights in Mashhad’s hospitals. Material and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. The participants were 486 nurses who were selected based on the random simple stratified sampling . The instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire including two main sections: 1) demographic information and 2) situational rights of the patients. Data were analysed in the SPSS. Results: The results of the study revealed that the level of awareness and the degree to which the nurses observe patients’ rights were at excellent level in more than 50% of the cases. The study also demonstrated that awareness and observation of the patients’ rights were not significantly correlated to age, experience, and educational level ( P>0/05) . Conclusion: According to the results of the study, observation of the patients’ rights were at excellence level in more than half of the cases however, regarding the importance of the issue in question, it is essential that policymakers set legislating rules which protect patients’ and nurses’ rights, so as to expect improvements in the quality of health and clinical services.
