Iran Journal of Nursing

  Patient teaching is a critical component of nursing roles, and nurses engagement in patient teaching is affected by nurses ’ perception of their role as educator, educational preparation, environmental and resource issues.

  So, to take a look on nurses ’ perception of patient teaching plus inhibiting and enhancing factors on it, we performed a cross sectional study, with 259 participants, selected by stratified sampling method, and in order to gather the data questionnaires were used.

  As a result 95.8% of nurses perceived that patient teaching is an important part of every nurse's responsibility and 95% of them said that patient teaching is a top priority in their career, but they reported that the time consuming nursing duties such as patient care, charting and administering medications, didn’t leave enough time for patient teaching. The top three factors inhibiting patient teaching were staff, time and unavailability of resource material. The top three enhancers were designation of one or two nurses to do teaching, providing time for nurses to do so, and development of more inclusive information guidance sheets to assist them in teaching specific topics. Providing essential resources and in-service education also enhance patient teaching. Besides, direct observation of nurses in clinical area, as they are engaged in patient teaching, is clearly needed. This will provide better understanding of the extend to which nurses are able to fulfill their professional mandate in providing patient teaching.