A Survey About How Much Physicians Give Information to Their Patients in Kerman, Iran

Abstract

Background: Providing accurate information to patients is an important task of the medical staff that can help establish a relationship complying with current ethical principles. The present study aimed to clarify the current status of providing information to patients about their diseases by physicians. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in the internal medicine and surgery wards of a teaching hospital at Kerman University of Medical Sciences. The participants, selected using the convenience sampling method, answered 13 yes/no questions about the information given to them by their physicians based on Braddock et al.’s study and the second part of the Patients’ Rights Charter in Iran. Results: Totally, 396 patients participated in this study. The results showed that less than half of the patients confirmed their physicians had given information to them. There was a significant difference in participants’ answers to the questions on knowing about drug names (P=0.002), drug side effects (P=0.002), paraclinical test results (P=0.002), and patient’s preference and consent to have awareness of adverse outcomes of the disease (P<0.001) between patients hospitalized at internal medicine and surgery wards, and the frequency of "yes" answers was higher in patients at internal medicine than surgery ward. Conclusion: It is recommended to offer appropriate training courses to physicians in order to further improve their relationship with patients to be able to make more informed decisions.