Identification of standards of nursing management planning in Iran

Abstract

Introduction: In the recent century, planning is one of the most important care skills in health service development. Nurses should be ready scientifically for managing situations in order to develop and perform appropriate models in patient care. It is necessary for managers to know the process and standards of planning and how to apply them in real conditions. With regard to importance of health care planning and lack of necessary criteria and standards, this research was conducted to identify standards of nursing management planning accreditation in Iran.                                                  

Methods: This triangulation research was carried out in 2004 till 2006. Fifty professional nursing managers in different levels of Iran medical universities and central hospitals, having experience in nursing management at least for five years, with MSc or BS degree in nursing management were included in the study through purposed sampling. First, a pilot study with an open questionnaire was conducted in Isfahan and Shiraz. Then, the study went on in 3 phases including searching for international standards in nursing management planning, developing a semi-structured questionnaire in Delphi method by 15 professional nursing managers after consensus on 70% and sending the final questionnaire to all 50 samples to get their agreements. Descriptive statistic method was used for data analysis. Finally, standards for nursing management planning were obtained in Iran.

Results: Forty eight standards of nursing management planning were obtained. The findings showed that most of the standards were accepted (90%) and there weren't any standards with agreement lower than 70%.

Conclusion: These standards, accompanied with the standards of other nursing units, can be used for quality improvement. The researcher suggests the ministry of health to use these findings and other related ones to accredit the nursing system and to identify its pitfalls.