Accreditation of nursing education in Iran: Documenting the process

In recent year, the accreditation process as the most important assurance and improvement of the quality ofhigher education, especially in medical sciences, has been set forthed. The need for accreditation of nursing faculties asthe same of medical sciences has been acutely felt. Yet there are not compiled standards at the same time, to describepresent and desirable quality via accreditation process. So naturally accreditation without standards will not be possible.Therefore, the employment of international standards does not seem to be realistic. Accordingly, the researchers decidedto compile applicable accreditation standards to nursing education in Iran, using available international standardsas well as suggestions made by nursing education experts in Iran. This research is a Triangulation study carried out in three main steps. In the first step, sufficient documents oninternational standards for validation of nursing education were gathered from the Internet and the standards were dividedin ten different categories. Using these ten categories of global standards, in the second step of study, a questionnairewith open answers based on Delphi techniques was prepared. In the third step, 50 nursing educational experts ofthe country were selected and their suggestions regarding desirability and applicability of these standards to the educational,executive and sociocultural situations in Iran were investigated through a descriptive survey method. To analyzethe quantitative data gathered in the third step, descriptive statistical methodology of frequency distribution was used. 260 standards in 10 domains were drafted for accreditation of B.S nursing education in Iran (in input, output andprocess areas). The most of the standards had either appropriate or fairly appropriate level except in some cases without100% votes of agreement mostly on issues lack of appropriateness of these standards can be central educational systemand the prevailing atmosphere in national nursing education system in Iran. So, necessary changes in final standardshave been made based on subjects’ viewpoints.