Barriers to Clinical Education from the Perspective of Nursing Students in Iran: An Integrative Review

Background and Purpose: clinical education is the main aspect of nursing education enabling students to use the results of theoretical foundations for patients. Understanding such barriers can considerably facilitate high quality education for nursing students. Materials and Methods: The present study intended to conduct an integrative review of the qualitative and quantitative studies on barriers to clinical education from nursing students’ perspective in Iran. To this end, such databases as PubMed, Scopus, Eric, Science Direct, ProQuest, EBSCO, CINAHL as well as four Iranian databases, namely IranMedex, Magiran, SID and Irandoc were searched without time limit. Relevant Iranian studies have also been included in this study. Once inclusion criteria applied, 16 out of 2620 studies were classified and analyzed accordingly. Results: The intended studies introduced a wide range of barriers to clinical education for nursing students, which were subdivided into five main domains: 1. Barriers of clinical environment, 2. Barriers of Clinical education instructors, 3. Barriers of hospital nurses, 4. Barriers of educational planning and 5. Barriers of nursing students. Conclusion: based on the results, clinical education has got serious problems for nursing students in Iran within the areas of educational fields, skilled human resources, nursing education program and nursing students’ attitude, which should be taken into account by the authorities and planners of the field.