Awareness and Observance Rate of the Patients' Rights Charter in General Hospitals; The Perspectives of Iranian Patients.

One of the most important indicators for assessing the quality of healthcare is the evaluation of patients' rights status and the interaction between patients and the healthcare providers. The patient rights charter improves communication between patients and service providers and enhances the quality of healthcare. This is a descriptive-analytic study that was performed on 500 patients referred to 25 general hospitals supervised by Tehran University of Medical Sciences. In this study, the observance rate of the patient rights charter was considered and the patient rights charter in the samples were studied based on dependency type of hospitals. The patients' opinions showed that the observance rate of the patient rights charter in the hospitals was 60.7%. Observance rate of patients' rights charter according to the dependency type of hospitals (governmental - private - public - charity) in all clauses of the patient rights charter was statistically significant (p = 0.000). The findings of this study indicate that the majority of clauses in the patients' rights charter is observed in hospitals. In the field of observing of the patient rights charter, increasing patient's awareness about their rights is a priority. And in the next step, comprehensive and assured laws are needed to observe patients' rights in healthcare centers.