Nurses’ Health-Seeking Behaviors

The current featured article is titled “Factors Involved in Nurses’
Health-Seeking Behaviors: A Qualitative Study” authored by Tahereh Najafi, PhD, MSc, BScN, RN; Forough Rafii, PhD, MSc, BScN, RN; and Sara Rahimi, BScN, MSN, RN. The article is available for free download while it is featured.. Sara Rahimi has provided this background information about the work reported here:

The motivation to do this research was created in my mind when I lost one of my experienced nurse friends due to metastatic pancreatic cancer shortly after a late diagnosis. He had been experiencing some clinical symptoms for a long time, but he often ignored them or sought treatment with the help of his knowledge. After this painful incident, as a nurse educator, I realized in my interactions with nurses that most of them spend all their time working at the patient’s bedside and taking care of them, and they do not care about their health as much as they should. So this question was formed in my mind, why do nurses delay seeking health even though they know the importance of early referral and timely treatment? What factors affect nurses’ health-seeking behavior (HSB)? Therefore, as a Ph.D. candidate in nursing, I decided to devote my dissertation to this topic. My review of the existing literature did not reveal much information on this topic, and I decided to explore these factors as a qualitative study by conducting unstructured interviews with nurses. Interviews with nurses allow a deep understanding of their experiences when facing health problems. By content analysis of the conducted interviews, five major concepts were developed: fear, trust/distrust, excuse, access, and support. This article sheds light on the barriers and facilitators of nurses’ HSB in a country like Iran that faces a shortage of nursing workforce and a high population of communicable and non-communicable diseases. Recognizing nurses’ HSB is important in ensuring the health of the nursing workforce and providing quality care to patients by a healthy workforce. This study helps health policymakers and managers to be aware of the barriers to nurses’ HSB and use this information to plan to improve health or change the poor health behaviors of nurses. Future research is needed on how nurses’ HSB can affect their behavior with patients and their care.

I would like to thank my dear mentors, Professor Forough Rafiei and Professor Tahereh Najafi who guided me in doing this research.