title: The process of community health nursing clinical clerkship: A grounded theory.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The performance of the community health nurse depends on a combination of scientific and practical competencies acquired by educational experiences during the nursing course. Curriculum planners of nursing education need to understand nursing education to train professional and community-oriented nurses. The aim of this article is to explore the experiences of nursing students during their community health nursing clinical clerkship courses.
  
  
  METHODS
  A grounded theory approach was used to conduct this study. Twelve nursing students, 13 health-care staff members, and 10 nursing instructors were interviewed individually in 2011-2012. The interviews were tape-recorded and later transcribed verbatim. The transcriptions were analyzed using the method of Strauss and Corbin.
  
  
  RESULTS
  AMBIVALENCE OF MOTIVATION WAS THE MAIN CATEGORY AND INCLUDED FIVE SUBCATEGORIES: Professional identity, educational atmosphere, educational management, motivation-based approaches, and inadequate productivity. This paper presents the aspects of the community health nursing clerkship course from the viewpoint of students in areas such as the role of the community health nurse, attitude toward the course, medical orientation, prerequisite skills/knowledge, poor administrative planning, rotation of students, insufficient activity for students, passiveness, providing service to clients, responsibility, and inproductivity. These categories could explain the nature of the community health nursing clerkship of the Mashhad Faculty of Nursing and probably others in Iran.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings revealed inadequate productivity of the community health nursing education; so, it is suggested to define a position for nurses in this setting and remove barriers and provide conditions for them to play more important roles in the promotion of community health.
authors.affiliation: Department of Post Graduate, Nursing and Midwifery Faculty, University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran and Faculty member of Zabol University of Medical Sciences, Iran.
authors.forename: Eshagh
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ildarabadi
authors.affiliation: Department of Med-Surg, Nursing and Midwifery Faculty, University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.
authors.forename: Hossein
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Karimi Moonaghi
authors.affiliation: Department of Med-Surg, Nursing and Midwifery Faculty, University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.
authors.forename: Abbas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Heydari
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistic, Faculty of Health, University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Taghipour
keywords: Clinical clerkship; Iran; community health; grounded theory; nursing students