Attitudes toward Mental Patients’ Rights: Program Models and the Ideology of Nurses

Abstract

This article examines the respective linkages of the medical model and the therapeutic community model of treatment to patients’ rights attitudes, knowledge of patients’ rights, and willingness to participate in rights conflict resolution. Nurses from units representing each of the program models were given questionnaires. The results indicated that nurses on the medical model unit had more favorable attitudes toward patients’ rights and were more willing to participate in rights activities than the nurses on the therapeutic community unit. Examination of the respective program structures indicated possible reasons for the obtained differences. Other reasons for the contradictory findings are discussed, as are the implications of such findings for future research.