Challenges of Participation in Legislation in the Health Sector (Qualitative Study)

Objective: The purpose of this study is to identify the challenges of legislative participation in the health sector in Iran. Materials & Method: The present study was exploratory and qualitative in terms of implementation process. The method of data collection was semi-structured and purposeful interviews with the selected participants. Experts in the field of health law (with at least 10 years of experience) who were skilled in the field of law and were knowledgeable about the health system of the country were selected based on a series of urgent interviews. It was completely simplified data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: We found 5 main categories and 26 subcategories. The main group consisted of legal factors, infrastructure factors, cultural and social factors, stakeholders (people) and legislators.In the Facilities Laws; three subcategories were created; the structure of parliament, the requirements of the rules for opinion and the facilities of the laws. In the infrastructure factors identified seven subcategories of communications networks: media, information, opinion grouping, electronic participation, financial opportunities, structural facilities and access / meeting with legislators. In the social and Cultural factors; three subcategories were created; subculture of people participation, belief in teamwork and social capital. Factors related to people were identified in the eight sub-categories of access to information, access to legislators, response or feedback from legislators, a sense of security after consultation, the extent of public awareness of their rights, training, the ability to exchange opinions and the presence of a strong expert team. In the context of legislators, nine subcategories were created; the desire to use otherschr('39') opinions, the capacity to adopt different opinions, party factors, regional factors, administrative health, education, opportunity, priorities, and motivational factors was created. Conclusion: There are several challenges for citizens to participate in the legislative process in the health sector. In the field of law, it is necessary to determine what the right of citizens to participate in the legal system is. Representatives also need training in order to make use of the capacity of community participation. On the other hand, in addition to mastering health knowledge, participants must also be able to speak the language of policymakers.