Patient bill of rights knowledge and perceived practice among females visiting a patient safety event at King Saud University

Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed to assess the level of knowledge about the patient bill of rights (PBR) among visitors of the King Saud University (KSU) “Patient Safety Day” event and the associated demographic features, to measure the level at which these PBR items were observed among the visitors during their medical care experiences, and to assess the perception of the importance of the PBR items from the participants' perspectives. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey among visitors of the KSU “Patient Safety Day” event was conducted, using interview-based questionnaires. The questionnaire was adapted from the items assessed in previous studies exploring knowledge of PBR. All analyses were conducted using a statistical analysis system. Results: Around 198 individuals participated in the surveys (response = 95.2%) and the majority of them were students. Only 28.6% of them reported being aware of the PBR mainly from hospital posters (27.3%) and by a treating physician (1.8%). Results of the survey did not yield significant associations between the knowledge of PBR and each of the levels of completed education and participant status. The faculty and staff had greater odds of knowing about PBR compared to the students (odds ratio = 1.93, 95% confidence interval = 0.60, 6.00). Conclusion: The study showed that only about a quarter of the participants reported being aware of the PBR. This necessitates increasing the efforts of health-care facilities to educate their patients about PBR. Hospital posters may be the best way to introduce these PBR to patients. However, this does not replace the need for direct communication about PBR by treating health-care teams.