Investigating Emergency Department Nurses’ Educational Needs and Exploring Strategies to Meet Challenges Against Management of These Needs: A Qualitative Study

Background: Nurses who are occupied in emergency departments play a critical role in health services provision and patient care. Considering the importance of providing appropriate and immediate care in emergency departments, nurses need to acquire sufficient skills and up-to-date knowledge. Objectives: This study aimed to identify the educational needs of nurses working in the emergency department and explore strategies to meet challenges against the elimination of these needs. Methods: This qualitative study was conducted using a content analysis approach. This study selected the emergency departments of two large educational hospitals affiliated with Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, southern Iran. This study was conducted on 15 emergency department nurses selected via purposive sampling with maximum variation within January 2020 and March 2021.The data were collected by performing 15 in-depth, semi-structured interviews (11 face-to-face and 4 telephone interviews due to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic) and making field notes. Then, the recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using the qualitative content analysis approach proposed by Graneheim and Lundman. The consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative studies (COREQ) was used to report the findings of this study. Results: Three main themes, namely the need for comprehensive and continuous education, challenges of managing educational needs, and strategies to meet educational needs, were extracted following data analysis. Conclusions: Clarifying the educational needs of nurses and exploring strategies to solve these challenges can be effective by providing continuous practical training and adopting effective teaching-learning strategies to promote nurses’ education and improve their performance in clinical skills. Accordingly, the provision of appropriate infrastructure for mobile health applications and utilization of mobile-based educational applications in emergency departments have to be taken into account by hospital managers and health policymakers.