Proposing Appropriate National Standards for Nursing and Midwifery Education Derived from International Standards: a Case Study, Master of Science in Nursing and Midwifery

Introduction: Applying foreign standards for accreditation of Master of Science in nursing and midwifery in Iran seems anomalous. Taking advantage of these foreign standards as well as the views of experts in nursing and midwifery, the researcher in this study tried to develop the accreditation standards according to educational circumstances in Iran. Methods: This study was performed in the years of 2005-2006 during multiple stages. In the first stage, international standards were gathered through the internet, and in the second stage, using these standards and the views of expert faculty members, proper standards for the context of Iran were set. During the third stage, Delphi technique was employed for taking votes. Whereas 50 persons having the criteria for entering the study were selected through purposeful sampling method and their viewpoints toward appropriateness of suggested standards for the educational circumstances of the country was obtained using the questionnaire designed in the second stage. The results were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: After applying experts’ views about applicability of these standards to circumstances in the country, 28 standards and 224 indices for nursing and midwifery education were proposed as final standards. Conclusion: Most standards had almost 90% desirability. Issues such as presenting evidences indicating the ability of speaking in English or qualification for education in Master of Science courses had less desirability. It seems that the main cause of their undesirability is the educational status in Iran.