Nurses 'awareness of patients' rights: A systematic review of studies conducted in Iran

Satisfaction is one of the characteristics of hospital effectiveness and it is necessary to achieve it by respecting patients' rights. Due to the need for nurses to be aware of the Patient Bill of Rights, this study was conducted with the aim of systematically reviewing the level of nurses' awareness of the Patient Bill of Rights in studies conducted in Iran.

This is a systematic review. The quality of the articles was evaluated using the STROBE standard checklist. To review the preliminary studies of articles in Persian language databases; SID, Iranmedex, Magiran and English language databases Science Direct, PubMed and Scopus and Google Scholar search engine from January 2000 to January 2020. In order to access the full text of articles from Persian keywords; Patient rights, knowledge, nurses and their combination and the English keywords Patient, Awareness, Patient`s Right in Iran were used.

In the initial stage of research search, 569 studies were reviewed. The researchers then reviewed the searched articles and 553 studies were deleted due to not being relevant to the subject and duplication and lack of access to the full article. Finally, 16 studies were used to write this study. The highest level of patients 'awareness of the Charter of Patients' Rights was about privacy and the right to receive good health services. In most of the studies, there was only a significant relationship between work experience and nurses' knowledge. However, in most studies, there was no significant relationship between gender, age, marital status and level of education with nurses' knowledge.

The results of this study showed that the level of nurses' knowledge about the Charter of Patients' Rights is favorable in most studies and also there is a significant relationship between age and nurses' level of knowledge. Therefore, the implementation of respect for patients' rights in health centers, especially for hospital nurses seems to be essential. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to this issue of hospital administrators and provide measures to implement it as well as possible.