Observing Patients’ Rights and the Facilitating and Deterrent Organizational Factors From the Viewpoint of Nurses Working in Intensive Care Units

Background: The rights of patients admitted to the Intensive Care Units (ICUs) are threatened more than the ones admitted to other hospital wards due to the nature of ICU and special health conditions of the patients admitted such as lower consciousness and their need for invasive and noninvasive care practices. Awareness of obstacles and observance of patients’ rights are of particular importance. Therefore, the current study aimed at determining the observance of patients’ rights and the organizational facilitators and deterrents influence them from the viewpoint of nurses working in ICUs of educational and therapeutic centers affiliated to Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Methods: The current descriptive, cross sectional study included 160 nurses working in ICU, surgery and general wards selected by the census method. Data collection instruments included the 3-section demographic characteristics questionnaire, the Client Observation Checklist (COC) as well as patient safety culture questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS V. 21. Results: Based on the results of COC, the client observation was 76.16% in the current study. The highest amount of satisfaction and desirable observance belonged to the information receipt axis (78.34%) and the lowest observance belonged to the selection and decision making axes (67.17%). The most important facilitating organizational and deterrent factors to observe the client’s rights were identified as reduction of working hours of nurses (96%), handling nurses’ amenities (94.6%), inappropriate nurse/patient ratio (92.6%), and lack of job security and mental safety in nurses (90.6%). Conclusion: Several factors, such as inappropriate nurse/patient ratio, socioeconomic problems, working hours, and heavy workload in a limited time were among the factors influencing the quality of nursing practices, based on the charter of patients’ rights.