Alborz University

Background: Patients are one of the most vulnerable social groups. Respecting patients’ rights will lead in advantages like “decrease in hospitalization time” and “increase in patients’ satisfaction”. This study is performed to assess the patients' rights observance in the hospitalization wards of educational hospitals of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.

Methods: In this descriptive-cross sectional study 137 medical student (intern) were selected by convenience sampling method. We used a questionnaire with 12 questions. Reliability of questionnaire was confirmed by experts of the field and validity was confirmed by Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient (81%). The obtained data were analyzed by SPSS (v21) using descriptive statistics, analysis of variance and Tukey test.

Findings: In this study the observance rate of patients’ rights was at a good level in 41.6% of cases, at an average level in 55.5% of cases and at a low level in 2.9% of cases. There was a significant difference between several hospitalization wards in the observance rate of patients’ rights. (p = 0.001). The observance rate of patients’ rights in infectious disease ward and gynecology ward was at a lower level in comparison with other wards.

Conclusion: The observance rate of patients’ rights was at an average to good level in most of hospitalization ward. However this observance rate is at a low level in some wards. More studies about the causes of these differences can help us in planning about improvement of patients’ rights observance.