Awareness, availability and perception of implementation of patients’ rights in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Objectives

By assessing patients’ level of awareness of their rights, hospital authorities can take necessary steps to educate the patients and health workers regarding patients’ rights. The aim of the study was to assess the patients’ awareness, perception and implementation of their rights in private and public hospitals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Materials and methods

A cross-sectional survey was conducted among patients using a 26-item Arabic-language self-administered questionnaire. The sample consisted of Saudi patients from 8 public and 6 private hospitals randomly selected from the 5 regions of Riyadh. Data were entered and analyzed using SPSS version 20. The mean knowledge score and the distribution of the factors related to knowledge about patients’ rights were determined. The relationships of the demographic characteristics to the four factors derived using factor analysis were determined using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The significance level was set at P < 0.05.

Results

A total of 632 surveys were collected from 14 hospitals. The majority were female respondents (66.7%), university graduates (47.9%) and public sector employees (49.2%). The majority of the respondents had not observed the rights of patients related to filing complaints or giving suggestions and participation in research. The overall mean awareness score was 18.16 ± 3.47. The mean score for overall knowledge about patients’ rights was 1.38 ± 0.92 which was within the range of ‘not observed’ to ‘somewhat observed’. Statistically significant association was observed with regard to education and the right to be involved in treatment decisions.

Conclusion

The results suggest that the majority of the respondents were aware of the patients’ rights but had not observed some specific rights such as the right to file complaints/give suggestions and to participate in research as mentioned in the patients’ bill of rights.