Abstract:
Background: Respecting patients’ confidentiality is an ethical and legal responsibility for health professionals and the
cornerstone of care excellence. This study aims to assess health professionals’ knowledge, attitudes, and associated
factors towards patients’ confidentiality in a resource-limited setting.
Methods: Institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted among 423 health professionals. Stratified
sampling methods were used to select the participants, and a structured self-administer questionnaire was used
for data collection. The data was entered using Epi-data version 4.6 and analyzed using SPSS, version 25. Bi-variable
and multivariable binary logistic regression analyses were used to measure the association between the dependent
and independent variables. Odds ratio with 95% confidence intervals and P value was calculated to determine the
strength of association and to evaluate statistical significance.
Result: Out of 410 participants, about 59.8% with [95% CI (54.8–68.8%)] and 49.5% with [95% CI (44.5–54.5%)] had
good knowledge and favorable attitude towards patents confidentiality respectively. Being male (AOR=1.63, 95% CI
[1.03–2.59]), taking training on medical ethics (AOR=1.73, 95% CI=[1.11–2.70]), facing ethical dilemmas (AOR=3.07,
95% CI [1.07–8.79]) were significantly associated factors for health professional knowledge towards patients’ confidentiality. Likewise, taking training on medical ethics (AOR=2.30, 95% CI [1.42–3.72]), having direct contact with the
patients (AOR=3.06, 95% CI [1.12–8.34]), visiting more patient (AOR=4.38, 95% CI [2.46–7.80]), and facing ethical
dilemma (AOR=3.56, 95% CI [1.23–10.26]) were significant factors associated with attitude of health professionals
towards patient confidentiality.
Conclusion: The findings of this study revealed that health professionals have a limited attitude towards patient
confidentiality but have relatively good knowledge. Providing a continuing medical ethics training package for health
workers before joining the hospital and in between the working time could be recommended to enhance health
professionals’ knowledge and attitude towards patient confidentiality.
