Exploring the Extent of Patient's Awareness of the Patient's Rights Charter in Shahid Sadoughi Hospital of Yazd in 2000

The patients’ rights charter has been codified for the purpose that on one hand the patients become acquainted with their rights and on the other hand this charter is principally observed by the hospitals. In our country, despite the approval of the patients’ rights charter by the Ministry of Health, Treatment and Medical Education in 2002, it has not yet been recognized and accepted correctly. This descriptive study has been performed in a cross-sectional manner. In this study, 150 patients with more than 24 hours of hospitalization records in gynecology, obstetrics, internal medicine I, internal medicine II, and surgery and cancer wards of Shahid Sadoughi Hospital of Yazd were chosen by an easy random sampling method. Most awareness was of the paragraph 1 related with the due treatment and/or respecting without noting racial, cultural and religious factors and the least awareness was related with the paragraph 9 i.e. the patients’ awareness of the types of educational and research activities. Therefore, considering the results of this research and other studies, the researchers provide proposals for the increase of the patients’ awareness of their rights that include: supply of the patients’ rights charter to the patients upon reception at the hospital and explanation of its contents by the hospital staff, execution of educational programs (pamphlet, brochure, poster, etc) for the patients.