This study was a cross-sectional descriptive and analytic one, for which the information was gathered through questionnaires which were filled in by interviewer for patients and physicians; but nurses filled in their own questionnaires. Questionnaire’s content was based on literature review and the questions were modified after consultation with experts for the assessment of validity.
To increase the reliability of the questionnaire, the interview was performed by the same interviewer at all three hospitals.
Furthermore, the average disparity and differences in answering questions in test and retest were studied at two stages, which showed the reliability of the questionnaire.
The field of study consisted of three hospitals including a general teaching hospital, a private hospital and finally a public therapeutic one, all located in Tehran. The questionnaire comprised of a series of general questions concerning demographic information and 21 questions concerning the necessity of observance of the patients’ rights.
In this study, patients were selected from internal medicine and surgery wards of the hospitals.
Patients were excluded from the study if: had been hospitalized for less than 24 hours, suffering from moderate and severe cognitive problems, or had moderate to severe pain.
The interview was conducted with patients after being informed of the objective of the study. The only inclusion criterion for physicians and nurses was involvement in clinical activities in any of the above-mentioned hospitals. Before interview, it had been emphasized that each interviewee should express his/her judgment concerning each question only on the basis of the hospital circumstances.
It should be noted that questionnaires were filled out and gathered within a three-month period at large.
The information related to the 143 patients was filled out by interview and was also filled out by two other groups including 143 nurses (response rate = 61.3%) and 82 physicians (response rate = 27.5), respectively.
The criterion for necessity of each right was measured according to Likert Scale ranked from 0 (not necessary) to 10 (absolutely necessary).
For describing the results of the study, mean, median and standard deviation (SD) were used concerning quantitative variables, while number and percentage points were used in for qualitative variables.
Non-parametrical tests were used for comparing approaches of groups concerning the degree of necessity of each right in hospitals and other independent variables in the three groups of patients, nurses and physicians.
Since the variable of necessity of rights had been measured on a graded basis with zero mark (not necessary) up to 10 (absolutely necessary) and had no normal distribution, non-parametrical tests were applied.
In the cases where independent variables consisted of two groups (like puberty), Mann-Whitney Test was used, while Kruskal-Wallis Test was used in the cases where independent variables had more than two groups (such as hospital).
In assessing the results of questions posed by the three groups, i.e. patients, nurses and physicians, at three selected hospitals, some cases of meaningful differences were considered both statistically and clinically significant in a way that the average disparity of marks obtained in this regard topped 2.
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Ethical Considerations:
Informed consent was obtained of participants. It is noteworthy that patients’ information will not be disclosed to a third party without obtaining written authorization. Considering the requests of some of the officials in charge of the hospitals cooperating in the study, no mention will be made of the names of these hospitals.
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Results:
This study shows different approaches of patients, physicians and nurses with regard to necessity of observance of the patients’ rights and also differences of attitudes of each group at three healthcare centers as healthcare providers.
In patients’ group, in terms of gender, at the private hospital men were high in number than women (35 out of 50 subjects), while women constituted the highest interviewees at the educational hospital (23 out of 41) and the public one (28 out of 50).
The age of patients ranged from 14 to 80 years (46.57±17.36 and median 46.00 for the all of the patients).
The mean age was 51.36 and 41.29 years for men and women respectively, and it showed a statistically significant difference between two groups (P=0.000).
One hundred and twenty referrals were married and 21 were single.
Marriage between two groups of men and women had similar distribution.
As regards marriage, no statistically significant differences were observed in the mentioned three hospitals.
The number of illiterate patients hospitalized at the public hospital and also the number of patients holding high school diploma and bachelor degrees hospitalized at the private hospital were significantly higher than that of the two other hospitals (P=0.000).
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