Challenges of Community Health Nursing Education in Iran

Abstract

Comprehensive studies on community health nursing education have not been performed In Iran and nursing graduates have limited ability to provide health care outside the hospital. However, education policy makers require a thorough understanding of nursing education for training of professional nurses. The aim of the present study is to review the existing challenges of community health nursing education in undergraduate curriculum, and explore its dimension. In this review study, some medical resources including nursing index, nursing consult, Proquest, Scopus, Elsevier, Pub Med, SID, Iranmedex, Magiran and Medlib were used in order to cover all associated studies. Searching articles from 1991 to 2012 was performed by using key words: Undergraduate nursing education, community health, and review studies separately and in combination. Inadequate productivity weakness of holistic and community-oriented attitude of nursing students, non-applicability and poor training methods are the biggest problems in community health nursing education. Education of community health nursing is of poor quality and absence of educational models and appropriate practical programs challenge its progress against major barriers. The findings of this study have provided compelling evidences for authorities involved in nursing education. We believe that the desirable change would be possible by considering the experiences of students; teachers and employees involved in community health nursing, a process providing better understandings and directives for nursing education policy makers.