Nursing practice is surrounded by many legal aspects because nurses are accountable for their professional judgments and action. For the implementation of high quality of nursing practice in the world of latest medical technological advances a good knowledge of legal aspects of health care is necessary. The enactment of various legal provisions like Consumer Protection Act, India, 1986 (CPA), Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI), and standardization of procedures and practices has brought nursing care under the legal ambit and focus, more than ever before. The purpose of the present study was to determine the level of knowledge regarding medico legal aspects of patient care among nurses working in a selected hospital of Kerala.The study utilized a non experimental approach, and descriptive design. The target population was staff nurses working in the selected hospital, Thrissur, Kerala. A total of 48 staff nurses who were working in cardiology and cardiothoracic wings of the selected hospital wasrecruited using purposive sampling. Findings revealed that, majority of 91.7% of study participants had inadequate knowledge while 4.2% each had moderately adequate and adequate knowledge. None of the participants reported to be aware of medico-legal cases against nurses in India and in the working institution. Knowledge regarding medicolegal aspects of patient care was only found to be asso  ciated with total years of experience (p=0.000), but not with other variables. The study highlights on the need to strengthen nurse’s knowledge on medico legal aspects of patient care.

Keywords: Knowledge; Medico- Legal; Nurses.