Awareness on Client's Rights and its associated Factors among Nurses Working in a Hospital of Lumbini Province

Abstract

Background: The client enters the health care delivery service with needs, concerns and expectations, requiring various interventions. In order to provide quality care that meets the client’s needs and increase his/her satisfaction, the client’s views must be respected and his preferences taken into consideration. Respecting the individual’s rights is the vital responsibility of nurses in addition to their basic responsibilities with holistic health care services. Protecting the client’s rights by the nurses only will be possible when they have gained necessary knowledge on it and suitable conditions be provided for respecting these rights. The aim of the study was to assess the level of awareness on client rights and its associated factors among nurses working in a hospital of Lumbini Province.

Methods: A descriptive cross sectional research design was employed for the study. Non probability purposive sampling technique was used to select the sample of the study among nurses working in different wards of tertiary hospital. Self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect data after taking informed consent. Collected data from the interview were edited, coded and entered into Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS-16 version) for analysis. Data was analyzed by employing both descriptive (frequency, mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistical methods (Logistic regression and chi-square test).

Results : The average age of the respondents was 30 years with Mean ±SD = 30.8±9.5 and more than half of them belong to the ethnic group Brahmin (59%).  Nearly two thirds of them were married  (62.7%) and more than half (59%) of the respondents had less than 5 years of working experience in their respective areas. The results showed that nearly two-thirds of respondents had an adequate level of awareness regarding clients’ rights. There was no statistically significant association between level of awareness with the sociodemographic variables.
Conclusion : The study revealed that nurses who participated in the study had adequate level of knowledge on client’s right while over one-third of them had inadequate levels of awareness regarding clients' rights. It was clear that after becoming a registered nurse, the majority of nurses were not informed about clients' rights. It is recommended that continuing education programs for nurses concentrate on raising their understanding of clients' rights and emphasizing the significance of it to provide quality care.