Patient's Rights-Awareness among Indoor Patients of a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital in Wardha

BACKGROUND Patient's knowledge about their "disease condition and rights creates a benchmark for effective doctor-patient communication". Informed patients are better aware of their diseases, treatment, and care thus, they should also be made to actively participate in their own care. For these reason health care worker should educate the patient regarding their disease condition. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted among 196 indoor patients of a tertiary care teaching hospital of Wardha city using 21 questionnaire based on NABH & patients right charter. The sampling was done by simple random sampling method. Written inform consent was taken from patients who were admitted as indoor patients and had remained beyond 3 weeks in the hospital. Descriptive analysis was carried out in order to evaluate the measures of the collected result. RESULTS Most of the patients were adults followed by older adults with a percentage of 53.6% and 34.7% respectively. The percentages of male and female patients admitted were 45.9% and 54.1% respectively. Patients from urban areas were more aware than those from rural areas. Education plays an important role in patients' rights as most of the variables were found to be statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS This study concludes that there is a need for raising knowledge and awareness to educate the patients about their rights. Along with their rights, the patients should know about their responsibilities in the hospital as well.