Nursing profession in Iran: An overview of opportunities and challenges

Abstract

Aim: Iran's health-care system has witnessed profound changes in the last decades. Despite its progress, the system has currently faced many challenges in one of the important subsystems, nursing. The present review article aimed to present an overview of the opportunities and challenges of the Iranian nursing system, based on recent literature. Methods: A broad search of the English and Persian-language literature was carried out, incorporating both electronic and manual components from 1999 to 2009. The results of the investigations among the searched literature are summarized. Results: The major challenges are nursing shortages, job dissatisfaction, poor social position of nurses, the gap between theory and practice, lack of community-based nursing care, lack of an appropriate student recruiting system, and shortages in the nursing educational curriculums. Conclusion:The authors believe that media, political and public support play a pivotal role in improving the image of nursing in society, increasing motivation among Iranian nurses, and promoting the sociocultural climate and the welfare of nurses, which will result in higher levels of quality of care as well as greater patient satisfaction.

Nursing Education in Palliative Care in Iran

“…The lack of a proper job description and the mere performance of routine tasks has made people view nurses as only doctors' assistants and regard doctors as the main member of the medical team in charge of providing care. This attitude has lowered the social status of nursing and has killed nurses' motivation for providing services in a way that is becoming of their profession; as a result, participation in ongoing training courses and workshops does not affect the nurses' performance to a great degree [10,24]. Researchers believe that the mass media and political and public support can play a major role in elevating the social status of nursing, increasing motivation in nurses and improving the social and cultural environment and the welfare of the nurses, which ultimately lead to a higher quality of care and an increased satisfaction of the patients with the care provided to them [10].…”

“…There are currently 400 PhD nurses graduated from 14 nursing schools and 400 more studying toward the degree. A total of 40 nursing schools are currently offering master's courses in nursing and 2000 students are studying toward this degree [9,10]. After the Islamic revolution in Iran and due to the excessive demand for male nurses during the Iran-Iraq war, the number of male nurses increased by 50%.…”

“…At the present moment, nursing education is provided at three levels, including BSc., MSc. and PhD., and nurses contribute to the society through different duties in care, support, training, research and counseling [10][11][12].…”

Community-based nursing education in South Africa: A grounded-middle range theory

“…It is imperative for nursing education programs to be responsive to the national health policies [12,13] as they have to prepare graduates who are able to function at all levels of the health care system. [14] Part of preparing responsive nursing students includes the use of appropriate and diverse practical placement settings for experiential learning. [14,15] Appropriate practice placement settings should include traditional settings, such as hospitals, as well as nontraditional practice settings, such as communities, patients' homes and hospital-linked outreach services.…”

“…[14] Part of preparing responsive nursing students includes the use of appropriate and diverse practical placement settings for experiential learning. [14,15] Appropriate practice placement settings should include traditional settings, such as hospitals, as well as nontraditional practice settings, such as communities, patients' homes and hospital-linked outreach services.…”