title: Nursing profession in Iran: an overview of opportunities and challenges.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Iran's health-care system has witnessed profound changes in the last decades. Despite its progress, the system has currently faced many challenges in one of the important subsystems, nursing. The present review article aimed to present an overview of the opportunities and challenges of the Iranian nursing system, based on recent literature.
  
  
  METHODS
  A broad search of the English and Persian-language literature was carried out, incorporating both electronic and manual components from 1999 to 2009. The results of the investigations among the searched literature are summarized.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The major challenges are nursing shortages, job dissatisfaction, poor social position of nurses, the gap between theory and practice, lack of community-based nursing care, lack of an appropriate student recruiting system, and shortages in the nursing educational curriculums.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The authors believe that media, political and public support play a pivotal role in improving the image of nursing in society, increasing motivation among Iranian nurses, and promoting the sociocultural climate and the welfare of nurses, which will result in higher levels of quality of care as well as greater patient satisfaction.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Nosrat St., Tohid Sq., Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Zahra
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Farsi
authors.forename: Nahid
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dehghan-Nayeri
authors.forename: Reza
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Negarandeh
authors.forename: Soheila
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Broomand
mesh_terms: D003479:Curriculum; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D004506:Education, Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration; D007492:Iran; D009729:Nursing; D013338:Students, Nursing