Barriers of Health Education in Iran’s Health System: A Qualitative study

Despite the importance of health education, studies revealed that health education in Iran’s health system is not desirable, so the present study was done to investigate the barriers of health education in Iran’s health system.

This qualitative study was done in 2019. Twenty health experts and physician and 26 community-based health workers (CHWs) were selected through purposive sampling method. Data were collected using semi-structured interview and group discussion. The data were analyzed using Lundman and Graneheim content analysis approach.

After data analysis, five themes including personal barriers (low capability of CHWs, low personal motivation, and wrong belifes of educator), interpersonal (the weakness of other health care providers in educating CHWs, inaccurate communication, poor commitment, and Customer-related problems), organizational (the weakness in empowerment of health care providers, high workload of CHWs, problems related to educational resources, and inappropriate evaluation and monitoring), social (low credibility of CHWs among Community Members (CMs), economical issues of CMs, and challenges related to using internet and virtual social networks), and contextual barriers (those related to universities, radio and television, and the gap between practical and theoretical education) were extracted.

As barriers are multidimensional, so it is recommended to develop a comprehensive plan with cooperation of managers, experts, and health providers for solving the barriers.