Background: This study aimed to define the role and importance of patients' rights in personalized healthcare from the perspective of nursing students in Poland, Spain and Slovakia.
Methods: The research was carried out by means of a diagnostic survey, using the survey technique, with the participation of 1002 nursing students attending a full-time undergraduate study program at three European countries. The "Patients' rights" questionnaire was used as a research tool. The average age of students was 21.6 years (±3.4). The empirical material collected was subjected to a statistical analysis.
Results: The study demonstrated that 72.1% of nursing students from Spain, 51.2% from Poland and 38.5% from Slovakia believe that patients' rights are respected at a good level in their country. Significant intergroup differences (F = 67.43; p < 0.0001) were observed in the self-assessment of students' knowledge of patients' rights. The highest average values were obtained by students from Spain (3.54 ± 0.92), while 35.9% of students from Slovakia and 25.5% from Poland were quite critical and pointed to their low level of knowledge of patients' rights in their self-assessment. When ranking patients' rights related to respecting dignity, students from Spain obtained much higher average values (4.37 ± 0.92) than students from the other two countries.
Conclusions: The level of students' knowledge of patients' rights and the respect for patients' rights by medical personnel is, in the opinion of the respondents, quite diverse and requires in-depth educational activities among nursing students at the university level in respective countries.
Keywords: nursing; patients’ rights; personalized medicine; student.