Two approaches to nursing: a study of Iranian nurses

Background: Studying nurses' experience from a sociocultural perspective can contribute to improving knowledge and understanding in this field. Purpose: To describe and compare three different groups of Iranian nurses' experiences of their profession. Methods: The study was conducted in Iran and Sweden. The data were collected from semi-structured telephone interviews and analysed with latent content analysis. The participants were three groups of registered nurses (RNs) (21 persons). All RNs were born and grew up in Iran. The first group (A) were educated and had worked in Iran but were now working and living in Sweden. The second group (B) were educated and worked in Sweden. The third group (C) were educated and worked in Iran. Findings: The nurses in Sweden worked with a patient-orientated approach while nurses in Iran worked with a task-orientated approach. Nurses in all three groups explained that they suffered from stress, had a heavy workload, were underpaid and understaffed. The findings showed that RNs working with a patient-orientated approach, experienced work satisfaction to a greater extent than RNs working with a task-orientated approach, although other aspects also influenced the nurses' situation considerably.