Respecting patients privacy during nursing care in the viewpoint of Patients and nurses

Privacy is a major human need and is a cornerstone of medical care. Nurses, because of the specific nature of their profession, have a specific role in fulfill privacy need of their patients. The aim of this study was to compare viewpoints of patients and nurses regarding respecting to patient’s privacy during nursing care. This study was a descriptive comparative. All nurses in three hospital related to Tabriz university of medical science (n= 109) and 161 patients from these hospitals participated in the study. For data gathering, two parallel questionnaires used. First section of questionnaires consist of demographic data of nurses and patients and second section measure viewpoints of patients and nurses regarding respecting to patients privacy during nursing care. Results show that there is statistical differences between nurse’s (Mean = 33.06) and patient’s (Mean = 27.05) viewpoints regarding respecting to patient’s privacy. Furthermore, there is positive powerful correlation between number of days after hospitalization (p = 0.001) and needs of patients for nursing care (p = 0.019) with patients viewpoint of respecting to their privacy during nursing care. So, there was negative powerful correlation between perception of patients regarding their health (p = 0.001) with patients viewpoint of respecting to their privacy during nursing care. This research shows there were statistical differences between nurses and patients viewpoint regarding patients privacy. Furthermore, results show whatever patients need further nursing care, had worse health status or increase in hospitalization day, the patient’s viewpoint regarding the respecting to their privacy during nursing care increase. This may indicate whatever the contact of patient with nursing stuff increase the viewpoint of patient closes to nurse’s viewpoint