Instructional Program on Legal Aspect: Registered Nurse’s Knowledge and Attitude

Abstract

Introduction: Nurse’s think it important that people’s rights should be protected and respected; they sometimes express concern at the difficulties of doing so. Objectives: Objectives of the study were to assess the level of knowledge & attitude on legal aspect, to find the effectiveness of the teaching programme and to find the association between knowledge scores and selected variables.Methodology: An evaluative study of instructional program on knowledge and attitude regarding legal aspect in health care among 53 registered nurses working in selected hospitals of Udupi district, Karnataka state. Sample were selected by non- probability purposive sampling. Data were collected by demographic proforma, knowledge questionnaire and attitude scale. Results: The result showed majority of them i.e.39 (73.6%) had no in-service education on legal aspects in health care. In the pre test most of the participant i.e.32 out of 53 (60.4%) had poor knowledge whereas in the post test 10 (18.9%) had poor knowledge. Hence a reinforcement class was given where none of them had poor knowledge. There was significant difference between the median of pre test and post test knowledge scores of staff nurses (11, 14) (Z value=-5.891, ‘p’ value= 0.0001). Hence it is inferred that the instructional program on legal aspect in health care was effective in improving the knowledge of the staff nurses. All the participants had favourable attitude in the both pre test and post test. There was no significant association between pre test knowledge and selected variables. Conclusion: The study showed significant increase in knowledge of participants after the instruc-tional program. There is great need in service education on legal aspect among registered nurses in health care sector.