THE CHALLENGES OF NURSING DOCTORAL CURRICULUM IN IRAN: A CRITICAL LOOK BASED ON DELPHI TECHNIQUE

Nursing Education in doctoral degree has many positive impacts for both the
nursing profession and healthcare systems. However, due to the development of nursing education and
the dynamic nature of community needs in terms of healthcare system, it is faced with challenges.
Accordingly, this study aimed to determine the content and executive challenges of nursing doctoral
curriculum based on Delphi technique.
Materials & Methods: This Delphi study was conducted in 3 rounds on 29 nursing doctoral students
and 17 nursing faculty members in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Iran. Qualitative content
analysis was applied to the data to summarize data, extract statements and identify main themes to
develop the primary questionnaire in the first two rounds. In the third round, Data were quantified using
descriptive statistics and data analysis was performed using the IBM SPSS software (version 24; SPSS,
Chicago, IL).
Results: The findings of present study were classified in four categories: (1) education; (2) research; (3)
clinical; (4) administrative. The responsiveness of nursing doctoral curriculum to the needs of
community, healthcare systems, nursing profession and even faculties/students themselves were
considered as the biggest challenge. Moving away from the clinical environment and failure to improve
the clinical competencies of nursing doctoral graduates were the other serious challenge of the nursing
doctoral curriculum.
Conclusion: Major revision and reform of nursing doctoral curriculum were needed to fulfill the
challenge of its responsiveness. Evidently, the officials of Iran board of nursing would benefit from
taking into account the clinical issues and problems of current healthcare system, considering the
underlying pitfalls of nursing doctoral programs and qualitative and quantitative evaluation of different
levels of nursing education, particularly doctoral degree as the "prestigious pillar of profession"