Self-development: The Process of Professional development in Iranian Nurses

Abstract

Nowadays, change is inevitable, especially in the health care organizations, so Commitment to professional development is vital to most professions, including nursing. In Iran, nurses constitute a sizable amount of the people in the health care organizations, but no sufficient attention is paid to them and their development by the organization and the staff development programs available is assessed as inefficient by nurses. Therefore, it seems that understanding the concept and the process of development as viewed by nurses could assist the organizations and management and the nurses to achieve the same. The purpose of this study was to explore Iranian clinical nurses' professional development process. Grounded theory was chosen as the method for conducting this inquiry that was carried out at Tehran medical university hospitals. A total of 21 clinical nurses and nursing managers participated through a purposeful and theoretical sampling frame. The participants had nursing experience ranging from 3 to 28 years and worked in various clinical areas. Data were mainly collected through open-ended interviews to engage participants in dialogical interview relationships. No additional participants were sought when analysis indicated that data saturation had been reached. Data was analyzed using Corbin and Strauss' (2008) grounded theory approach to analysis. After analyzing the data, we identified four categories that included participants' experiences regarding processing of Self-Authorized Professional Development. The stages of this process are Self-awareness, Engagement to work, Self-acceptance, and Experimental self-proceeding. This research contributes to nursing knowledge by identifying a process through which nurses developed professionally. This understanding can be useful in nursing education to help prepare nurses for workplace realities and to help managers adopt an active role in developing their employees.