Maintaining dignity and respect is among patients' most fundamental rights. The importance of patient dignity, the status quo, patients' needs, and a shortage of survey studies in this area were the underlying incentives for conducting this study. This was a cross-sectional descriptive study in which data were collected through Patient Dignity Inventory (PDI). The questionnaire was completed by 280 inpatients in 2012 to determine their perspectives on their personal state of human dignity. In this study, the mean score of patients' dignity was 1.89 out of 5 (SD = 0.81). Results indicated a significant relationship between type of hospital and the distress caused by disease symptoms, peace of mind, and social support (P < 0.05). There were also relationship between type of ward and dependency (P < 0.05), type of disease and dependency (P < 0.05), gender and social support (P < 0.05), household size and peace of mind (P < 0.05). The person's satisfaction with household income showed significant relationship with symptom distress, dependency and existential distress (P < 0.05). Results showed a significant inverse correlation between age and patient dignity (P = 0.005, r = - 0.166). However, the relationship between employment status, health insurance, education level and the above factors were insignificant. Studies indicate that there is a relationship between patients' dignity and mental distress, and therefore policy makers and health services officials should establish and implement plans to maintain and enhance patients' dignity in hospitals. Educating the health team, particularly the nurses can be very effective in maintaining patients' dignity and respect.
Keywords: nurse-patient relationship; nursing care; patient dignity.