A comparative survey of the attitudes of nurses, nursing students, and patients as to the observance of the patients’ dignity in the psychiatric ward

Background Patients with mental health illness have a variety of physical, mental, social, and spiritual needs and respecting their dignity and status is of the most important. Nurses and nursing students might have different attitudes with regard to observation of status and dignity of mental patients. Aims The present study is an attempt to comparatively survey nurses, nursing students, and patients’ attitudes about the observance of the patient’s dignity. Methods The study was carried out as a cross-sectional work on 300 participants in psychiatric wards of the selected hospitals of Kashan and Tehran cities in 2017. The participants were selected through purposeful sampling and data gathering was done using a demographics checklist and a researcherdesigned patient’s dignity observance questionnaire. Data analyses were done in SPSS (V.19) using descriptive and inferential tests (P-value=0.05). Results The three groups of participants were homogenous in terms of gender. There was a significant difference between psychiatric wards of the Kashan-based and Tehran-based hospitals in terms of attitudes about dignity of patients (P=0.04). In addition, the results confirmed a significant difference among the study groups with regard to their attitudes about the dignity of patients (p=0.000). Conclusion The nurses had better attitudes with regard to the observance of patient’s dignity in comparison with the patients and nursing students. There was also a difference between Kashan-based and Tehran-based hospitals as to the observance of patient’s dignity so that the attitudes in the former were better than that in the latter. It seems that holding moral training courses is essential.