Abstract

ABSTRACT Aim and objectives To study the awareness and practice of Patient rights and to compare the same between general and private ward hospitalized patients of a selected hospital. Materials and methods Descriptive research approach was adopted wherein data was collected from 120 hospitalized patients, i.e. 60 from general and 60 from private ward using a structured questionnaire. It was then analyzed by frequency, percentage and significance test to interpret the awareness and practice of patient rights in the hospital. Results The study reveals that awareness of patient rights was high in most of the cases. There was 71% awareness about the right to confidentiality, 67% awareness of the right to grievance redressal, 65% awareness about the right to be informed, 58% awareness of the right of access to healthcare and 55% awareness about the patient's right to choice of care and decision making. But low (39%) awareness was noted in case of patient's right to informed consent. With regards to practice of patient rights, it was seen that certain rights were well-practiced like 95% practice of the right of access to healthcare, 89% practice of the right to confidentiality and 64% practice of the right to choice of care and decision making. But relatively lower percentage of practice was observed for right to be informed (49%), right to informed consent (44%) and the right to grievance redressal (21%). There was significant difference in the level of awareness and practice of patient rights among private and general ward patients in most of the rights. Conclusion The study was vital in finding that most respondents were aware of patient rights. So also, most of the patient rights were practiced in the hospital in varying degrees, while a few needed immediate rectification and management action. How to cite this article Fernandes AB, D'Cunha S, Suresh S. Patient Rights: Awareness and Practice in a Tertiary Care Indian Hospital. Int J Res Foundation Hosp Healthc Adm 2014;2(1):25-30.

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