The Importance of Patient Education: the Attitude of Nurses in the Hospitals of Babol

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Patient education is one of the quality standards of nursing care and affects on the costs, recovery and cure rate of the patients. Identification of the current status in patient education can result to better planning in this way. In the present study, the importance of patient education was assessed according to the viewpoints of the nurses in the hospitals of Babol. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was performed on 183 nurses working in the hospitals of Babol who selected by convenience sampling. Data were collected through a questionnaire that included demographic characteristics and 22 questions for assessment their attitude in a five point Likert scale. Data were finally analyzed by using the software SPSS V18. ANOVA and T-test were used for data analysis. FINDINGS: The mean age was 33.38±7.5 years, and 155 (84.7%) were female. The majority of the nurses had a positive attitude toward patient education also 89.3% considered patient education as a necessary subject. The most negative point in nurses attitude (92.4%) was toward the negative impact of patient education on routine ward tasks. There were no significant relationship between the hospitals, educational status, work experience, and organizational post with their attitude, but between the work department and their attitude, there was significant relationship (p=0.019). CONCLUSION: The results of this study showed that the importance of patient education had a good position in the attitude of nurses. However, to provide a better situation, inhibiting and facilitating factors should be identified to improve patient education in the hospitals