Legal awareness and responsibilities of nursing staff in administration of patient care in a trust hospital.

INTRODUCTION The enactment of various legal provisions like Consumer Protection Act, Right to Information Act and standardization of procedures and practices have brought nursing care under legal ambit. Needless to say, the level of legal awareness amidst nursing staff in India is abysmally low. Present study was undertaken to assess the level of legal awareness and responsibilities of nursing staff in administration of patient care at a trust hospital. METHODS An open ended questionnaire was prepared to assess the level of legal awareness among the nursing staff. The GNM and ANM nursing staff deployed at the nursing home and general wards only were randomly screened and specialty nurses were exempted. RESULTS The knowledge on various legal provisions, as was applicable to nursing, across all categories of nurses which were under review, was found to be poor. The nursing staff had poor knowledge on patients' rights and also on their legal obligations towards patients. The GNM nurses fared better than ANM nurses. However, 46.67 % of nurses were found to be aware about cases of omission or commission. CONCLUSION This study substantiated the fact that nurses had poor knowledge on the law that governed their profession and that in days to come, it would become increasingly difficult for them to avoid law suits which were prepared against them, unless remedial actions were taken.