The Effect of Group Discussions on Attitudes of Practitioner Nurses on Observance of Patient Rights: Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Abstract: Background and aim: Althoug group discussion increases knowledge and ability in nurses’ clinical judgement , its effectiveness in changing attitudes and respect for patients’ right by nurses has been less considered. This study aimed to investigate the effect of group discussions on attitudes of practitioner nurses on observance of patient rights in Educational Hospital of Shahid Madani in Tabriz in 2014. Materials and methods: This research was an experimental study with pretest and posttest with control group design that was done on practitioner nurses. Study samples included 142 nurses with negative attitude score on patient right observance. They were randomly allocated to the experimental and control groups. Data collection tool was a two-part questionnaire that included all demographic information and observance of patients’ physical, psychological and social rights. Data were analyzed using statistical software of SPSS. Results: The findings showed that there was no statistically significant difference between two groups in terms of their Socio-demographic characteristics (P>0.05). Covariance test showed statistically significant difference between two groups and score increase in experimental group was significantly more than the increase in control group (P<0.05). Conclusion: The results of this study showed that group discussion can play role in increasing patients’ right observance by nurses. Therefore, It is suggested that the group discussions used to change the attitude of nurses to respect the rights of patients in hospitals.