title: Challenges of training diabetes nurse educator in Iran.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The purpose of this study was to describe the first attempts and performance of health system in Iran in training specialist nurses in the field of diabetes- related care and education.
  
  
  METHODS
  This was a qualitative content analysis. Three diabetes management planners in the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, three provincial executive authorities of diabetes in the health system and ten nurses who worked as diabetes nurse educators (DNEs) participated in this study. Data obtained through semi-structured face-to-face interviews, a focus group, existing documents, field notes, and multiple observations. Data analysis was guided by the conventional approach of qualitative content analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Three major themes and six sub-themes were emerged through data analysis. Main themes were: (a) decentralization diabetes nurse educator training without any management (stop education due to transition training responsibility to provincial health authorities and lack of supervision of managers on training); (b) try to reform nursing education infrastructures (try to train qualified educators who were candidate for teaching to DNEs, try to reform undergraduate nursing curriculum); (c) failure of DNE curriculum (lack of consistency between content and timing with the curriculum objectives and lack of attention to learn evaluation process).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings of this study reflected the failure and multiple challenges in educating nurses working in diabetes units. Despite the fact that important roles were defined for nurses in the action plan for preventing and controlling diabetes, any specific action was not done in preparing nurses for these roles.
authors.affiliation: PhD Candidate, Department of Nursing, School of Medical Sciences AND Nursing and Midwifery Care Research Center, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Parvaneh
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Abazari
authors.forename: Zohreh
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Vanaki
authors.forename: Eesa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mohammadi
authors.forename: Massoud
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Amini
keywords: Diabetes; Iran; nursing education; qualitative research