The nurse's perceptions of the reasons for using complementary therapies in clinical nursing practice

Many of the nurses has been calling for the integration the complementary therapies into the conventional medicine. Some of them use these methods in their clinical practice. The reasons for application of complementary therapies by nurses are different in various fields. Identification of these reasons are essential and important. So, this study was conducted to explore the nurses’ perceptions of the reasons for using complementary therapies in clinical nursing practice.
This qualitative content analysis study was done from June 2014 to July 2015 in Isfahan and Kashan cities. Sampling was done purposively and was continued until data saturation. Semi-structured interviews were done with fifteen nurses who had first-hand and rich experience. Data were analyzed concurrently with data collection.Data analysis was done via the conventional content analysis approach and MaxQDA software was used to help organizing and analyzing the data.
Results showed that 4 major categories including ethical trends & perceptions, ‘commitment beliefs, attention to information from informal source's and attention to information from formal sources. Also two main themes including‘nurse's moral obligation' and ‘nurse’ use of information source's were abstracted.
The nurse's practice about the reasons for using complementary therapies in clinical settings can be explained by their moral obligation and obtained information from various sources especially informal sources. These findings are useful for managers to designing guidelines and models related to integration of complementary therapies into nursing practice.