Background: Observing the principles of professional ethics in psychiatric patients not only leads to improvement of patient-doctor relationship, early recovery, preferment of treatment process, and client respect, but it also results in a reduction in the patients’ complaints about medical staff’s misdemeanors. The present study aimed to determine the level of psychiatric patients’ satisfaction with principles of professional ethics of the medical team.
Methods: This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted on 120 of patients referring to the psychiatric clinics of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. The data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire including 20 questions about patients' satisfaction level with the medical staff’s observation of professional ethics. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by cronbach's alpha=0.926. The data were analyzed by SPSS using chi-square and Kruskal-Wallis tests.
Results: The mean score of the patients’ satisfaction with the medical team’s observation of professional ethics was 46.15+4.47. The patients’ highest mean score of satisfaction was related to “explanations about the drugs which had to be consumed at home” and "respecting the patients' privacy", while the lowest mean score was related to "providing information about services". According to the results, women, married individuals, and those between 51 and 60 years old showed the highest level of satisfaction with observation of professional ethics principles by the medical staff. The lowest satisfaction level, on the other hand, was related to the adolescents (13-18 years old).
Conclusion: The results showed that the patients were averagely satisfied with observation of professional ethics in psychiatric clinics. Since the lowest satisfaction levels were related to males, adolescents, and singles, more attention should be paid to these groups.