Nursing Students' Perception regarding Patients' Rights and Patients' Advocacy

Abstract

Background: Advocacy (protection) is one  key concepts in nursing ethics  defined as the process of informing patients who seek health care and have efforts in creating a safe place and clean hospital for patients. An important tenet of nursing is respecting the human rights and dignity of all patients. The priority of healthcare organizations must be protection of patients’ rights. If the human rights and patients welfare be at risk, it is necessary that a person undertake their protection.  The patient's advocacy is vital for vulnerable groups such as elders, very young people, people who reside in institutions, prisoners and disabled group. Nursing profession is a job in which human rights and ethics are essential points and the distance between the ethical issues related to this profession and their application is also important. Aim: Assess the  nursing students' perceptions regarding patients' rights and patients' advocacy. Design: descriptive correlation design. Subjects: Convenient sample of nursing students (No. =143) in Faculty of Nursing at Port Said University/ Egypt. Tools: The data collected using two tools, the first one:  questionnaire which assesses the patients' rights. The second tool: The patients' advocacy questionnaire. Results: There was highly perception of nursing students regarding patients' rights and patients' advocacy. Recommendation: Further studies to assess the health care providers' awareness and application of patients' right and patients' advocacy needs to be conducted in Egypt.

Key Words: Patients' Right, Patient Advocacy, Nursing Students' Perception.