Analysis of staff knowledge of client rights in West Virginia institutions for the developmentally disabled was undertaken in this study. Even with the identification of guaranteed rights for institutionalized individuals through federal and state legislation, standards, policies, and judicial decisions, whose findings have shown that violation of client rights continues to occur in most institutions. A review of the literature indicated that one possible cause for the continuation of rights violations may be the staff limited understanding of client rights. The literature also has revealed few studies have attempted an investigation in this area. This study involved 644 full-time staff who were representative of one of six different job categories. The staff were employed in one of three West Virginia institutions for the developmentally disabled. It was hypothesized that if differences in staff knowledge of client rights were identified, this information could be used to direct staff training and policy-making decisions and perhaps minimize the continuous violations of client rights.

That significant differences in knowledge of client rights did exist when different job categories of staff were compared within each institution as well as across institutions. It was found that significant relationships in knowledge of client rights exist between staff with different job longevity rates, but the correlation was too low to be considered a reliable predictor of limited value. No significant differences in staff knowledge of client rights were found between the three institutions. The implication of these research findings and the future need for research in this area are discussed.