Knowledge about anti-discrimination laws and regulations and assertion of rights among chronic hepatitis B patients in four provinces of China

  Objective  To examine the knowledge about anti-discrimination regulations and awareness on patient rights protection and their associated factors among chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients in China, and to provide evidences for enhancing the awareness of anti-discrimination actions.

  Methods  We selected four province-level regions with different CHB prevalence as study sites and recruited 797 CHB patients in one or two hospitals in each of the four regions with convenient sampling for a face-to-face interview on the awareness of the three anti-discrimination laws and patient rights protection using a self-designed questionnaire during January – April 2017. Chi-square test was used to explore the relationship between the awareness and their associated factors.

  Results  The proportions of the respondents reporting the awareness of one of the three anti-discrimination laws were 39.55% (297/751), 40.21% (302/751), and 56.99% (428/751), respectively; only 9.46% (73/772) of respondents reported being aware of patient rights protection and 0.91% (7/772) of the respondents reported asking for help from relevant organizations or agencies to solve discrimination-related issues. The respondents being aware of at least one of the three laws reported a 1.78 times higher ratio of having consciousness of assertion of rights compared to the respondents not being aware of all the laws (χ² = 20.406, P < 0.001). The respondents living in Beijing city, aged 31 – 40 years, with higher education, being medical workers, students, teachers and researchers reported a significantly higher awareness rate of anti-discrimination laws and regulations than other respondents (all P < 0.05). The respondents with higher education had a significantly higher consciousness of assertion of rights (P = 0.006).

  Conclusion  Although many chronic hepatitis B patients in China were aware of anti-discrimination laws, but a small number of them had the consciousness of assertion of rights and few of them took actions related to patient rights protection. The results suggest that educations on anti-discrimination protecting CHB patients should be promoted among the public.