Comparison Between Antenatal Nurses’ Compliance With Pregnant Women’s Bill of Rights in Urban and Rural Areas in Alexandria

Background: Pregnancy is one of the most important events that institute a powerful experience in women’s life and their families. Pregnant women’s relationship with maternity care providers and the maternity care system during pregnancy is vitally important. Care during this period needs to encompass basic human rights. Objective: To compare between nurses’ compliance with pregnant women’s bill of rights in an urban and rural areas in Alexandria. Settings: The study was carried out at El Shatby Maternity University Hospital and four family medicine centers in Abies, Alexandria. Subjects: A convenient sample of 120 nurses working for at least 2 years in antenatal units of the abovely mentioned settings. Tools: Three tools were used for data collection. The first tool was basic data Questionnaire to identify nurses' socio demographic, academic and professional data. The second tool was nurses’ knowledge about pregnant women’s bill of rights questionnaire. The third tool was nurses' compliance with pregnant women’s bill of rights, observational checklist. Results: Findings of the present study revealed that a statistically significant difference is observed among the two groups regarding the relationship between their total score of knowledge and level of compliance. Although, good knowledge among as much as 51.3% and 44.0% of urban and rural nurses, respectively, was associated with poor compliance level. Yet no good compliance was observed among the good knowledge rural ones unlike the urban ones. Where all the good compliant ones were good knowledge (p=0.041). Conclusion: The study concluded that nurse’s compliance with pregnant women’s bill of rights was unfortunately poor in both urban and rural settings. Recommendations: training program(s) are recommended for maternity nurses addressing the importance of compliance with pregnant women’s bill of rights.