Abstract
BACKGROUND: One of the main tasks of nurses in providing health therapeutic services is patient education, an essential component of nursing care. This educative process is necessary for elderly patients with multiple and personalized needs. Hence, this study identified and prioritized the factors that hinder nurses from educating elderly patients admitted to teaching hospitals. METHODS: Data were collected through an electronic survey (Porsline) via summative content analysis. This study was conducted with nurses in teaching hospitals in Hamadan, western Iran, from December 2024 to January 2025. Seven hundred twenty-four nurses were recruited through convenience sampling to answer the following open-ended question: "In your opinion, what are the causes and factors that you when educating elderly patients in the hospital ward?" RESULTS: The analysis was organized into 12 main categories and 26 subcategories, which were ultimately reduced to six main themes, and their frequencies were calculated. The most frequent category was "staff training," which appeared 1,387 times, whereas the least frequent category was "lack of motivation," with 91 repetitions. Other categories were identified through data analysis on the basis of frequency and significance, including "hospital setting," "memory issues," "attention deficits," language and communication difficulties," sensory impairments," family involvement," peer support," mobility issues," pain and discomfort," anxiety and depression." CONCLUSIONS: This study identified the main barriers preventing nurses from educating elderly patients in Iranian hospitals. Nurses can address these barriers by being more thorough in training, improving human resources, and upgrading relevant capacities and methods, leading to enhanced health literacy, self-care management, and improved quality of care overall for this population group. Organized community in-process support for multimorbidity patients is the key to strengthening self-care management. Implications of all the available evidence The results of this study have implications for practice. These findings may serve as a foundation for developing interventions and policies to address these barriers and enhance care for geriatric patients. CLINICAL TRIAL NUMBER: Not applicable.