THE BARRIERS TO PATIENT EDUCATION FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF NURSES IN IRAN: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Patient education is one of the important aspects of nursing care and key roles of
nurses. In this context, recognizing its barriers can greatly influence on the process of improving the
quality of patient education. The aim of this study was to investigate the barriers to patient education
from the viewpoint of nurses in Iran.
Material & Methods: In this review study, research articles related to barriers of patient education from
the viewpoint of nurses were searched in Persian and English languages and without time limitation in
these databases: PubMed, ISI, ERIC, Science Direct, Scopus, Proquest, Google Scholar, MagIran, SID,
IranDoc and IranMedex. Doing research in Iran was the main inclusion criterion. After evaluating entry
criteria and quality of the articles, 24 articles were analyzed.
Results: A wide range of barriers were presented in studies. After the categorization, five main areas
were identified: 1) Barriers related to nurses: Lack of time due to workload of nursing staffing; 2)
Barriers related to patients: the patient's unfavorable physical and psychic status; 3) Management
barriers: lack of managers' support; 4) Organizational obstacles: the inappropriateness of nurse-patients
ratio; 5) Environmental barriers: lack of cooperation of the medical team members to implement
educational programs.
Conclusion: Most of the barriers to patient education are those of related to nurses. To improve the
status of patient education, it is essential for managers to encourage nurses in this important task by
adopting measures such as increasing in nursing staffing, allocating sufficient funds and proper
supervision.