The knowledge of Nurses and Nursing Students in Kashan University of Medical Sciences about Professional Laws and Regulations, 2008

Knowing the nursing as an autonomous profession made nurses more susceptible to present in courts. The low levels of the nurses’ knowledge about the professional laws and regulations would endanger both nurses and this patients. Because of the importance of the issue and the lack of research in this regard, this study was conducted for evaluating nurses and nursing students’ knowledge of professional rules and regulations, in Kashan university of medical sciences. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 160 nurses working in the hospitals of Kashan University of medical sciences and 65 last semester nursing students in this university. Data collection was performed through a questionnaire included seven questions regarding demographic information and 20 questions regarding professional rules including job description, recording documentation, types of professional crimes and negligence, penalties and blood money, patients’ rights and primitive court tasks and how it should be treated. Data were analyzed by using chisquare, t-test and pearson correlation coefficient in SPSS 11.5. A total of 71.1% subjects were nurses and 28.9% were students. Most of them had not been trained about professional laws and regulations and 95.6% expressed the need for more knowledge and education about professional rules and regulations. None of the subjects was fully aware of the professional rules. Totally the nurses got 49.43%±8.88% of the total score and the students 48.61%±8.31% of the score. The highest score was in the domain of the patients’ rights (59.9%) and the lowest score was in the domain of types of professional crimes and negligence (36.4%). The knowledge of nurses and nursing students in the field of professional regulation was at the level of weak to moderate. This could put both nurses and clients at risk. Therefore, immediate action seems to be necessary to promote nurses awareness about professional rules and regulations.