A Comparison between Awareness and Observance of Patients' Rights Charter from the Perspectives of the Personnel, Students, and Patients in the Operating Rooms of the University Hospitals of Jahrom

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: One of the most important issues in healthcare is an awareness of and adherence to patients’ rights. Patients’ physical, psychological, spiritual and social needs should be treated as if they are standards and regulations that medical teams should know about and observe. Considered as important worldwide, patients’ rights are stressed in Islam too. The objective of the study is to compare the perspectives of the personnel, students, and patients in the university hospitals of Jahrom on care-providers’ awareness of and observance of patients’ rights in the operating rooms.

METHOD: The present study is a descriptive-analytical, cross-sectional project that conducted in 2014. The sample consisted of 478 subjects; the patients were sampled based on the stratified sampling method, while the operating room personnel and students were selected based on the census method. A researcher-designed questionnaire that ensured the validity and determined the reliability of it was used to collect data.

The collected data were analyzed using SPSS v. 23.

RESULT: The average awareness score of the personnel was found to be 19.54 with the standard devia3.25; their observance score was 17.75 with the standard deviation ±4.69.

The average patient’s-rights-awareness score of the patients was 15.99±5.82, while their score for patient’s rights observance was found to be 24.11±5.30.

The average patient’s-rights-awareness score of the students was 20.061±3.411, while their score for patient’s rights observance was found to be 18.892±6.271.

The results of the study showed that the awareness level of both the students and personnel was higher than that of the patients. Also, a comparison between the perspectives of the three groups on observance of patients’ rights revealed that the patients had higher expectations than both the students and personnel (P≤0.05).

CONCLUSION: These findings stress the need for raising patients’ awareness about their rights and ways of demanding them in clinical environments. Raising students’ awareness about patients’ rights is equally important. Moreover, enhancing hospital personnel’s familiarity with patients’ rights can guarantee patients’ health and satisfaction.

Patients’ greater concern about adherence to patients’ rights points to their rightful expectations and the need for hospital authorities and personnel to try harder to satisfy patients.

Respect for patients’ basic rights and dignity is an important issue that is stressed by WHO too. As protectors of people’s health and lives, healthcare providers play a crucial role in every society.