Observance of Hospital Rules and Nurses Rights by Patients' Companions After Health System Reform: Results of Hospital Based Study in Shiraz, Iran

Health system reform confronts hospitals with a lot of patients and their companions. This study aimed to determine the knowledge, attitude and practice of patients’ companions toward hospitals rules and nurses’ rights.

This descriptive-analytic cross-sectional study was conducted through a multistage cluster random sampling of patients’ first degree relatives who had accompanied their patients in main public hospitals of Shiraz, Iran. Valid and reliable questionnaire was filled for each interviewee by a face to face interview. Data were analyzed using SPSS.

Mean age of 423 interviewees was 36.7±11.7 years with female to male ratio of 1.29. 292(67.4%) were educated until the end of high school, while 264(61.1%) had a kind of job. Knowledge, attitude and practice toward hospitals’ rules and nurses’ rights were inappropriate in 61(14.1%), 84(19.4%) and 221(51.2%) respectively. Moreover, Sum score of these variables was inappropriate in 102(23.6%). Correlation between knowledge and practice was 0.44(p<0.001). Total score of knowledge, attitude and practice had a significant association with the kind of hospital, gender, level of education, marital status, being bread-winner of family, having a job, patients’ finance providing, cohabitation with patient in the same place, admission ward of patient, last time of interviewee’s admission in hospital and amount and source of information about hospitals rules and nurses’ rights.

Inappropriate practice of patients’ companions toward hospitals rules is associated with violence against nurses, their burnout and decreasing quality of hospital services. Therefore, following health system reform in Iran and increasing trend of referrals to hospitals, efficient interventions to improve this index is recommended.