The awareness of patients' bill of rights among medical interns and medical students at Tabuk University

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Incorporating patient priorities and preferences into their healthcare can improve desirable proximal outcomes related to communication such as the patient feeling heard, understood, respected and engaged in their care, which can soften the negative effects of the illness and can help clinicians in decision-making. AIM: To determine the level of awareness and knowledge of Patients' Bill of Rights and factors affecting it among undergraduate students and medical interns. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study carried out in Tabuk city among all medical interns doing their clinical rotations at Tabuk city (n = 70) as well as the 4th, 5th and 6th-year medical students, Tabuk University (n = 219). An English self-administered valid and reliable questionnaire, based on patients` Bill of Rights (PBR) document published by the Ministry of Health (MOH), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) was utilised for data collection. RESULTS: The study included 205 medical students and interns out of invited 289, giving a response rate of 70.9%. All were Saudis. Almost two-thirds (69.3%) reported hearing about patients` bill of rights. Among those who have heard about these rights, 40.2% gained their information from lectures whereas 16.2% gained the information from hospital posters. The total knowledge score about Patients` Bill of Rights ranged between 0 and 32 (out of a possible maximum of 34) with a mean ± SD of 24.6 ± 4.6 and median (IQR) of 25 (23-27). There was a significant positive correlation between student`s age and total score of knowledge of patients` bill of rights, Spearman`s correlation coefficient (r) = 0.18, p = 0.014. The mean rank of the total knowledge score was 83.98 among 4th-grade medical students and reached to 125.07 among medical interns, p = 0.003. CONCLUSION: Overall awareness and Knowledge of the senior medical students and interns in the College of Medicine, Tabuk University regarding patients` rights age acceptable. However, some deficient issue needs to be improved.