Nurses challenges in health assessment skills in Iran and another country: An integrative review

Health assessment skills lead to enhancement of nurses’ self-confidence at work. The aim of the present study is to investigate the challenges that nurses face in conducting health assessments in Iran and another country. This study was conducted in integrated review study based on Russell’s method. The inclusion criteria were; related to the objectives of the study, English or Persian writings, published during the past 35 years and access to their full text. The nonscientific articles as well as the articles that lacked a specific name or transparent data were excluded from the study. Health assessment, nurse, history taking, and physical examination were used as keywords. We used Persian and international databases such as SID, Magiran, Iranmedex, Google Scholar, Medline, Scopus, Elsevier, PubMed, and Science Direct. Finally, 20 articles were included in the study. the scattered data were summarized for data analysis and interpretation purposes. All of the data reviewed, obtained, compared, and finally, classified into six groups. The most important challenges in the use of these skills in order are Individual -motivational, professional, environmental, educational, cultural, and communicational factors as well as factors that are related to patients and their culture. The results showed that the challenges that nurses face in performing clinical health assessment skills are mostly shared in Iran and across the world. Although all of the factors have been involved in execution of these skills, the health assessment skills are significantly dependent on the need for them as felt by the nurses themselves.