Nurses' attitude towards patient advocacy in a single tertiary care hospital.

AIM: To determine nurses' attitude towards patient advocacy in a single tertiary care hospital. DESIGN: Descriptive/analytical cross-sectional studies. METHODS: A comprehensive two-part questionnaire about nurses' views on nursing advocacy was administered to 371 nurses using a convenient random sampling. The first part included eight demographic variables, and the second part, the questionnaire, was used to measure nurses' attitude towards patient advocacy. RESULTS: Nurses were more likely to act as patient advocate when their patient was in danger, and their employment was not at risk while acting as patient advocates. Female nurses scored higher than males; those with higher qualifications had higher behavioural and cognitive scores. A significant correlation was observed between cognitive (belief) aspects of attitude (p = .78, p ≤ .001) and behavioural (efficacy) aspects (p = .89, p ≤ .001).