Iranian Journal of Medical Education

Introduction: Nursing theses are among the most important sources to generate knowledge for nursing practice. Consideration of the five professional nursing roles is necessary for professional development of the field. This study aimed to assess the level of consideration of professional nursing roles in nursing MSc theses and how it has changed during 2002-14.
Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study reviewed nursing MSc theses written during 2002-14 in Mashhad School of Nursing and Midwifery. Theses’ titles were reviewed in terms of the five nursing roles including caregiving, educational, communicative, advocating and managerial roles. Data collection tool was a researcher-made checklist for identifying the themes of theses according to the five research topics.
Results: A total of 160 theses had been written in this period. Of these, 37.5% were related to caregiving role, 18.75% to educational role, 1.8% to communicative role, 6.25% to advocating role and 5.7% were related to managerial role while 30% addressed issues other than these roles. During these years, nursing MSc theses have been focused more on the caregiving role and the communicative role has received the least attention. The communicative, managerial and educational roles have gradually received further attention in this period; however, the number of miscellaneous topics has gone up too.
Conclusion: Given the importance of addressing the five nursing roles to contribute to the professional development of this field, it is necessary that future nursing theses should be more focused on and related to these roles.