Nurses' awareness of legal implications in their clinical practice.

Nurses’ awareness of legal issues was assessed in this study. The dependant variable, legal knowledge was represented by malpractice, standard of care, liability, negligence, suit-prone situations, and res ipsa loquitur doctrine. The independent variables were a) sex, b) age, c) education, d) clinical experience, and e) previous legal experience or inservice. The level of legal knowledge was determined through a previously designed case study questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered to a random sample of 40 full-time registered nurses and Woman’s Hospital of Acadiana in Lafayette, Louisiana. A 93% completion rate was achieved. The returned questionnaires were scored according to answers marked correctly. The question evaluated represented an overall total score as well as a score per individual legal category. The independent and dependent variables were compiled and tabulated according to descriptive parameters. The overall total score of the legal questionnaire suggest that staff nurses have a basic understanding of legal issues. The legal topic categories of standard of care, liability, suit-prone situations, and res ipsa loquitur doctrine still require additional understanding. Additional observation was that nurses were relatively young and recent graduates (within three to five years) of Nursing; programs. Overall, the younger nurses scored highest on the questionnaire. The independent an dependent variables were tested by correlation coefficients and noted to have no statistical significance at the .05 level.