الفهرس 
Ethics in Pediatric CareOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The goals of the study were to assess the level of awareness of patients and / or their care givers about ”patients’ rights”, to assess the level of their satisfaction about the health services provided to them at the hospital, and to assess the level of awareness of the medical staff (doctors and nurses) about ”patients’ rights”.
Three interviews were included in the study, the first one involved 473 randomly selected patients and their care givers attending the different clinics and those admitted to inpatients wards during the months of May and June 2011, responded to a questionnaire in Arabic language.
The second interview included 35 doctors at the different departments of the hospital and fulfilled a second questionnaire in English language about their knowledge and practice of ”patients’ rights”.
The third interview included 23 nurses at the different departments of the hospital responded to a third questionnaire in Arabic language.
The results of the study revealed that 56.8% of the patients and their care givers’ sample were aware about ”patients’ rights”. That awareness increased in some items as the right to be treated with respect and dignity in 99.8%, and decreased in the right to free participation in research activity to 46.3%. While the level of patients’ satisfaction was increased in some aspects as the time for examination in 90%, and was lower about respecting privacy in 26%. And there was a positive correlation between the level of satisfaction, and the age of patient and the level of education of the interviewed person. While there was no statistical significant difference between the outpatients and inpatients as regard total satisfaction.
At the end of the interview there were some observations reported by the interviewed persons, the most frequent were about the waiting places cleanliness and arrangement; and about investigations cost and long waiting time for investigations and to take the results.
The level of awareness of doctors about ”patients’ rights” was 94.3%, while the practice ranged between always, sometimes, and never as an example: to inform the patient about name and specialty 34.4% of doctors responded always, 59.4% sometimes, and 6.3% never informing the patient about name and specialty, and it was found that there was a positive correlation between knowledge and practice of doctors as regard informing the patient about name and specialty and it was statistically significant.
In this study, 100% of the respondent nurses were aware about ”patients’ rights”, but this percentage decreased in some rights as the right to complain and follow-up of the complaint to 82.6%, and 78.3% only were aware about the right to access to emergency services independent of payment.
We can conclude that the medical professionals are familiar with the patients’ rights but they don’t always respect these rights. This may be due to lack of continuous education to receive the up-to-date information concerning the quality of health care, or lack of legislation implementation.
We recommend improvement of waiting places, establishment of an education program for the health care providers, development of a system for transferring the results of investigations to the patient’s file directly to save time and prevent overcrowding at the hospital, and in case there is a complaint from a patient there must be someone who will follow the complaint and tell him the results.