Title: The Effect of Professionalism and Implementation of National Health Laws on Patient Care Institutions in South-South Zone, Nigeria
Authors: Ada Gaius PhD, Chuku Chidiebere Precious , Wemambu Faith Odegua
Volume: 10
Issue: 5
Pages: 5-19
Publication Date: 2026/05/28
Abstract:
Background: In Nigeria, the gap between statutory healthcare regulations and their practice is a persistent issue. The current thinking is that professionalism in health practice may influence the speed of implementation of national health laws at patient care institutions level gains national attention and policy direction. MethodsA cross-sectional, quantitative survey was administered to 428 health service workers from a convenient sample of 18 patient care institutions within the states of Rivers, Delta and Akwa Ibom. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, cross-tabulation with chi-square tests and hierarchical binary logistic regression to test for moderation effects. Output: Implementation was significantly predicted by awareness (OR = 1.088, p <0.000), contributing to explain 18.3% of variance Professional behaviour was the strongest predictor of compliance (OR = 1·075, p < 0·000), accounting for a variance of 20·8%. Positive predictors included institutional support (OR = 1.510), resource availability (OR = 1.427), and regulatory oversight (OR = 1.332); workload was a negative predictor (OR = 0.824). The findings showed that all four variables significantly moderated the relationship d between professional conduct and compliance (full model: R^2 = 0.498). The most severe barriers were inadequate funding (mean = 4.58), personnel shortages (mean = 4.49), and infrastructure deficits (mean = 4.41) with more than eight respondents out of ten rating the issues as either severe or very severe in severity. Overall Conclusions: Legal compliance is an important social influence on professional ethics but institutional support, regulatory enforcement, resource availability and workload moderate the relationship between legal compliance and profession conduct. The most challenging of these obstacles is institutional and regulatory barriers. Better people, better policies ? legal implementation is a systems problem at individual, institutional and regulatory level in the South-South zone.