Assessment of Nursing Students’ Attitudes Towards Recording and Protecting Patients’ Personal Health Data: A Descriptive Study

Abstract

Introduction. Since health information is considered as sensitive personal data and requires more careful protection, healthcare professionals need to be careful about this issue. The objective of this research was to determine nursing students’ attitudes towards recording and protecting patients’ personal health data. Materials and Methods. The population of this descriptive research consisted of 450 students who studied at the Department of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, Erzincan Binali Yildirim University. Sample selection was not used, and the research was completed with 374 students who were continuing education and who were accepted to participate in the research. Descriptive Information template and Attitude Scale for Recording and Protecting Personal Health Data for nursing students were used as data-collection instruments. The numbers, percentage, mean, standard deviation, non-parametric tests (the Mann-Whitney U test and the Kruskal-Wallis test) were used in data analysis. Results. Among our research participants, 68.4% of the students were females; 28.1% of the students were freshmen; 69% of the students were graduates of Anatolian high schools. Approximately 72.5% and 52.9% of the participants stated that they were aware of the concept of “personal data” and “personal health data” , respectively. The mean score of nursing students on the Attitude Scale for Recording and Protecting Personal Health Data was 3.97±0.71. The means scores obtained from subscales were as follows: 3.91±0.72 for Personal Health Data Information, 4.15±0.80 for Legal Information, 4.05±0.94 for Legal Data Sharing, 3.90±0.80 for Personal Health Data Sharing, and 3.77±0.33 for Recording of Personal Health Data, respectively. A statistically significant difference was found between the total scale and subscale scores of the students regarding their academic level. Conclusions. Students were found to have a positive attitude towards recording and protecting personal data. Increasing the responsibilities and raising awareness of the students for the protection of personal health data during their study is suggested to be important.