Knowledge and Attitude of Midwifery Students towards Observing the Ethical and Legal Standards of Patients' Rights

Abstract

Background & aim: In the midwifery profession, observing legal and ethical issues in professional practices should be emphasized. Legal and ethical advancements in the realm of midwifery have raised the need for midwives’ awareness as to patient rights. This study was performed to evaluate midwifery students’ knowledge and attitude towards observing the ethical and legal standards of patient rights in 2015. Methods: This descriptive study was conducted on 85 midwifery students in the 5th and 7th semesters of Bachelor of Midwifery program, the 1st and 3rd semesters of Master of Midwifery program, and 1st and 3rd semesters of Counselling in Midwifery master’s program at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. Data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire consisting of three domains of demographics, knowledge (30 questions), and attitude (35 items) towards observing the legal and ethical standards of patient rights. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, Student’s t-test, and correlation coefficient tests were used in SPSS, version 16. Results: The means of overall knowledge and attitude towards ethical and legal standards were 17.55±3.15 (moderate knowledge) and 145.40±12.33 (good attitude), respectively. No significant association was found between knowledge score of the subjects and observing the patient rights and midwifery ethical codes (p <0.05). Conclusion: Most students had good attitude, but moderate knowledge about ethical and legal standards of patient rights. Given the importance of observing these principles in providing obstetric care, we recommend holding workshops on this issue.