Educational Role of Nurses

Patient education is one of the most crucial functions of nurses. Constituting more than 70% of health and medical teams, the nurses play a valuable role in patient educations. Failure in acquisition of adequate instruction and information are among the prevailing complaints repeatedly expressed by the patients in legal circles and there are many obstacles ahead of patient educations. The objective of the present research is to analyze the factors facilitating patient education besides the implementation obstacles, and also, to propose solutions for promoting quality of patient education.

The present research is a literature review carried out based on the information gathered from regular search of online references, relevant published research works, and library studies.To meet the research objective, the researchers benefitted from the domestic (Iranian) papers published between 2005 and 2012 as well as international papers published since 2011 until 2014.

The research findings corroborate worthy effects of patient education in different aspects.
Nonetheless, its implementation is encountered by numerous obstacles including time restriction, insufficient number of personnel, shortage of resources and suitable instructional facilities, deficient knowledge of nurses, and absence of supervisory system. To alleviate the respective obstacles, different solutions are recommended such as: imposing supervision, improving human force, modifying organizational culture of patient education, deploying various motivating programs, applying clinical supervision paradigm, and utilizing novel instructional methods in the scope of patient education.

Taking into account highly helpful outcomes of nurses’ patient education and promotion of patients’ life quality, emphasis is made on the necessity of resolving the implementation obstacles via performing the recommended solutions. The prerequisite to perform the solutions in patient education is the vitally special attention to nurses and alleviation of their problems by the relevant authorities and managers.