Effect of nursing staff training on respecting the privacy of patients in the emergency department

Background and Purpose: Privacy is one of the most important humanitarian principles, respecting of which is regarded obligatory in the health care and nursing organizations. This study aimed to investigate the effect of nursing staff training on respecting the patient privacy in the emergency department.

Methods: This interventional study was conducted on 400 patients referring to the emergency departments of the Imam Khomeini and Shariati hospitals using a pretest-posttest design with inequivalent control group. For the purpose of the study, the patients of the Imam Khomeini and Shariati hospitals were assigned into the intervention (n=200) and control (n=200) groups, respectively. The data were collected using the privacy baseline questionnaire, which was filled out by the patients in both intervention and control groups. After the implementation of a virtual learning course about respecting patient privacy for 90 clinical staff working in the emergency department of the Imam Khomeini Hospital, the privacy questionnaire was again completed by the patients in both groups. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and independent t-test in the SPSS software version 19.

Results: According to the results, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of the age, gender, education level, and other demographic information. Furthermore, the two groups were similar regarding the mean scores of patient privacy prior to the intervention. However, after online education, the intervention group showed a significant increase in the mean score of patient privacy as compared to the control group (P<0.001).

Conclusion: The findings of the present study revealed that nursing staff virtual training could improve the patient privacy. Therefore, this measure can be applied in the emergency departments as an important step to holistic nursing care.