Purpose
This study’s aim was to understand clinical nurses’ patient advocacy and identify factors influencing this based on the Theory of Patient Advocacy.
Methods
The subjects of this study were 173 clinical nurses working in two university hospitals in D city, South Korea. Data were collected using a structured self-report questionnaire. Analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS 26.0 and included descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation coefficients, and hierarchical multiple regression analysis.
Results
Among the general characteristics, gender was found to be an influencing factor for patient advocacy. As a macrosocial antecedent, the ethical climate of the hospital influenced patient advocacy. For the microsocial antecedents, human rights sensitivity and patient vulnerability influenced nurses’ patient advocacy. This final model explained 35.6% of variance of clinical nurses’ patient advocacy.
Conclusion
Considering the findings of this study, the ethical climate of hospitals must be improved. In addition, programs to strengthen nurses’ human rights sensitivity and to help improve communication with patients must be developed. This could further aid nurse and patient relationships.