Abstract

Introduction: The goal of patient's rights is to ensure provision of adequate care to patients which in turn enhance the quality of medical care.

Objective: The aim of this review article is to evaluate the existing barriers to implementation of patient's rights in Iran and presenting appropriate solutions.

Methods: First, all studies related to patient 's bill of rights were searched using keywords such as “patient rights”, “patient 's prism right ”, “ observation of patient's rights "," barriers and patient rights "," satisfaction and patient's rights” and " awareness and  patients' rights” in internal databases of Iranmedex, Magiran, SID and Iran doc. Finally, on the basis of inclusion and exclusion criteria, 27 articles were found suitable for the study.

Results: The most important factors mentioned in these articles as barriers to observation of patients’ rights included patients, nurses, physicians and students’ lack of awareness on patient's bill of rights, lack of comprehensive agreement on performance of patient's bill of rights in Iran, excessive work load of nurses, staff shortage, and also hospitals being  training sites. Furthermore, among appropriate strategies for these barriers are: teaching the patients’ rights (as the most frequently-cited strategy), pay attention to organizational factors, improve factors related to employees, and also monitoring the implementation of patient rights.

Conclusion: Complete implementation of patient rights in Iran can be achieved only as a result of awareness, adequate resources, consideration of caregivers’ rights and a system of accountability.

Key words: Patient Rights, Patients, Delivery of Health Care