Bridging the theory-practice gap in Iranian emergency nursing education

BACKGROUND: The theory-practice gap is one of the important challenges of treatment, health, and educational systems. It is affected by different factors like students, teachers, and the clinical environment. This gap has consequences for education, as well as the treatment and health services systems. Thus, it is necessary to find effective strategies to reduce it. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim to find strategies to reduce the theory-practice gap in emergency nursing education in the view of stakeholders. METHODS: A qualitative research was conducted, including 18 semi-structured interviews and 3 focus group sessions with the stakeholders in a school of nursing and an educational hospital. Content analysis method was used to analyze the collected data. RESULTS: The strategies to reduce the theory-practice gap in emergency nursing education were divided into 6 primary categories, 2 main categories and 1 theme of action to change. From among the 69 strategies presented to the focus groups, the participants acknowledged 28 strategies as practical and effective. Furthermore, the participants held that it was necessary to have reformative and developmental actions in line with care, supervision, evaluation, and educational processes in order to reduce the gap between theory and practice in emergency nursing education. CONCLUSION: The theory-practice gap is affected by many different factors. Thus, the people involved must pay attention to every influential factor in order to reduce the consequences, and use effective cooperative strategies by taking into consideration the human resources, infrastructures, processes, and the administrative culture in faculty and clinical environments.