AWARENESS OF PATIENTS’ BILLS OF RIGHTS AMONG MEDICAL STAFF IN MASHHAD MEDICAL UNIVERSITY` TEACHING HOSPITALS

Abstract

Introduction: Respecting patients’ rights practice and keeping patient satisfied is one of most important principles in ethical medicine. Increasing Awareness and respecting patients’ rights result in better health care considering human and ethical rights. The Ministry of Health and Medical Education in Iran published a patients’ bill of rights and mandated it be posted conspicuously for the patients. With regard to necessity of Patients’ bill of rights, patients’ role in decision making and respecting their right, this study aimed to investigate awareness of patients’ bills of rights among medical staff in Mashhad medical university` teaching hospitals

Methods: The current analytical cross- sectional study was conducted on 129 medical staff in the year 2014-15 in Mashhad medical university` teaching hospitals. The data were collected using a self-administer questionnaire with 28 questions whose reliability was 80 according to Cronbach's alpha. One-way analysis of variance, Student's t-distribution was used to compare means of Awareness via SPSS Ver. 21.

Results: The results indicated that awareness of medical staff was M=65/3, SD=67/0. Nursing staff were the most aware and radiology staff were the less aware from patients’ bills of rights.

Conclusion: Today, observing patients 'rights is one of the most important issues that should be placed at the top of the attention of health care programs, observance of patients’ bills of rights make  people feel  satisfied with respect for them at health care centers  . So it is neceesery to inform patient and professional on patients’ bills of rights by publishing more attention to patients’ bills of rights result on better health care