Background and aim Paternalism for paediatric patients is doctors’ or nurses’ acts intentionally on behalf of patients according to the purpose of doing good or avoiding harm. It can be against the codes of ethics, children rights and other laws. Paternalism is increasingly regarded as outdated and discussed on developed countries but there isn’t any study about it in Turkey.

Methods This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted at Selcuk University in March–April 2014. This study aimed to find nursing and medical faculty students’ tendency of paternalism for pediatic patients. Study population was 202 students and without sample selection 100 students who agreed to participate voluntarily were included in sample. Data were collected with a survey. Numbers, percentage distribution and chi-square were used to determinate data.

Results Medical faculty (40%) and most of nursing (76.8%) students stated they had received training about children rights in their undergraduate education. Significant statistical differences weren’t found between the awareness of children rights violations and taking children rights lessons (p = 0.50). Using personal experiences (nursing students’ 46.4%; medical faculty students’ 61.3%) and choosing useful things for children (nursing students’ 78.3%; medical faculty students’ 74.2%) in the process of providing information to parents were found important both nursing and medical faculty students.

Conclusion Even though nursing and medical faculty students expressed similar things during the process of providing information to parents, nursing students were found more sensitive about parents’ involvement clinical visits and autonomy of parents in decision-making processes.