Barriers to nursing care in emergency wards

Background: Caring is the essence of nursing. Since care is influenced by cultural, economic, and social factors, various diverse barriers exist in the realization of care. The aim of the study was to clarify barriers to caring in emergency patients based on experiences of nurses and patients and their relatives. Materials and Methods: A qualitative design of content analysis was used to identify the barriers to caring in emergency patients. In‑depth interviews were conducted with 18 Iranian nurses working in a university hospital emergency ward and with seven patients. Participants were selected purposefully. Data were analyzed according to qualitative content analysis. Results: After the classification analyses and integration of codes, seven categories were acquired. Finally, following three themes were extracted: Identified barriers to nursing care in emergency wards – the nature of critical ward, performance weakness of nurses, and deficiency in clinical management. Conclusions: According to the results of this study fundamental and management education for nurses, empowerment of nurses, principle and scientific triage, effective supervision, nurses’ support, wage increase, and motivation in nurses are important to achieve the research purpose.