Nurses Experiences of the Problems Caused by Patient's Litigation to Law Authorities

Nursing is one of the vulnerable careers in clinical health and nurses face patient’s litigation to law authorities. This study focuses on this litigations and their impact on the nurse’s activities. The present study is a qualitative research based on phenomenology. Nurses having the experience of confronting with the problems related to patient’s litigation to law authorities entered the study. Sampling was purposeful and continued until information saturation was obtained. An interview was done un-structural and the analysis of the data was according to colizzi method. Finally، the main themes of interviews were extracted. In this study، eight nurses having the experiences of patient’s litigation were interviewed. The age range of the participants was between 29 to 44 and their job experiences 3 to 22 years. After reviewing the interviews and extracting primary codes، three secondary codes، unwillingness to go to work، obsession at work and early disability at work، were obtained. Finally، the secondary codes formed one main theme، unwillingness to go to work. According to the results obtained from the experience of confrontation with patient’s litigation to law authorities، it was a painful and weakening experience for nurses and had a negative effect on nurse s clinical job. Therefore، inorder to prevent these kinds of job problems، it is recommended to teach the elements causing these problems and the ways to prevent them to the students of nursing and clinical nurses.