A model for empowerment of nursing in Iran

A grounded theory approach was used for analyzing the participants' experiences, their perceptions and the strategies affecting empowerment. Data collection was done through Semi-structured interviews and participant observation. Forty-four participants were interviewed and 12 sessions of observation were carried out.Three main categories emerged from the data collected; these are "personal empowerment", "collective empowerment", and "the culture and structure of the organization." From the participants' perspective, empowerment is a dynamic process that results from mutual interaction between personal and collective traits of nurses as well as the culture and the structure of the organization. Impediments, such as power dynamics within the health care system hinder nurses from demonstrating that they possess the essential ingredients of empowerment.A model was designed for empowering the nursing profession in Iran. Implementing this model will not only define nursing roles, identify territories in the national healthcare system, but it will restructure nursing systems, sub-systems, and services. Currently no such model exists; therefore, restructuring of the nursing system, including its services, education and research subsystems is recommended.Iran, a country of sixty eight million has a national health service which employs over 70,000 nursing personnel (including operating room technicians) who provide nursing care in general and specialty hospitals. Although the population of nurses is approximately one hundred and twenty thousand, many are unemployed. Among the unemployed are those who choose not to work after marriage. Consequently, Iran like other countries is faced with a nursing shortage. The impact of this nursing shortage lead nurses to work more than their required shift of 192 hours per month; with potentially 150 hours of overtime in some parts of the country. The role of nurses is unclear, for although most of them are employed in hospitals, yet few