Obstacles for Iranian rural population to participate in health education programmes: a qualitative study

OBJECTIVE: To explore the obstacles of community participation in rural health education programmes from the viewpoints of Iranian rural inhabitants. DESIGN: This was a qualitative study with conventional content analysis approach which was carried out March to October 2016. SETTING: Data collected using semistructured interviews that were digitally recorded, transcribed and analysed until data saturation. MAXQDA 10 software was used to manage the textual data. PARTICIPANT: Participants were twenty-two seven clients from a rural community in Ardabil, Iran who were receiving health services from health centres. RESULT: The main obstacles to participate in health education programmes in rural settings were ‘Lack of trust to the rural health workers’, ‘Adherence to neighbourhood social networks in seeking health information’ and ‘Lack of understanding on the importance of health education’. CONCLUSION: Rural health education programmes in Iran are encountered with a variety of obstacles. We need to enhancing mutual trust between the rural health workers and villagers, and developing community-based education programmes to promote health information seeking behaviours among villagers. The finding of this study will be a referential evidence for the qualitative improvement of local health education programmes for rural inhabitants.