Nursing Students' Human Rights Sensitivity and Perception of Patients' Rights / 한국간호교육학회지

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: This study aimed to explore human rights sensitivity and the perception of patients' rights among nursing students. For the study, 253 nursing students from K and D universities located in Daegu and the Gyeongbuk region were asked to participate. METHODS: Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0; in addition, descriptive statistics, a t-test, and a one-way ANOVA were used. RESULTS: The average human rights sensitivity score was 2.40 out of 5 points. Human rights sensitivity was significantly different in education experiences in regards to human rights after getting into nursing school and in nursing courses, as well as experiences of clinical practice. Among the six episodes that measured human rights sensitivity, nursing students reported the highest score on the right to the pursuit of happiness of older people and the lowest score was reported on the right to privacy. The average score of patients' rights perception was 4.53 out of 5 points. In particular, nursing students considered the right to enjoy human worth/dignity and the right to equality to be the most important of patients' rights. Patients' rights perception, in general, was significantly different depending on the number of family members. CONCLUSION: It is needed to develop an effective nursing curriculum in order to improve nursing students' human rights sensitivity and foster positive perceptions regarding patients' rights.