The Islamic Republic of Iran has experienced a sustained fertility decline over the past three decades, with total fertility rates decreasing to below replacement levels. Despite well-documented literature on the relationship between fertility and women's education, no empirical research has compared these trends during the past forty years. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between fertility and women's education, in the west of Iran. In an historical longitudinal household survey in 2009, 3443 women who had ever-married were interviewed. This study focused on women's fertility over their lifetime, according to education attainment levels for the period 1954-1993. An inverse relationship was found between age of marriage and the number ofchildren born by 40 years-of-age (P<0.01). Over the last few decades, the number of children born has decreased in all levels of mother's education, furthermore, the highest level of fertility decline was observed among women with an elementary level of education. The results of the study showed declining fertility convergence among the various education levels. Managers and policy makers in addition to encouraging employed women to have more children should also explore the issues for uneducated women and housewives.
Background: A large number of nursing students work while studying to gain clinical experience, but there is not a standard tool to evaluate the clinical competence areas affected by working while studying. Objectives: The current study aimed at explaining the role of clinical work while studying in the clinical competence of novice nurses and the development of a valid and reliable instrument to measure it. Methods: The current study employed an exploratory sequential mixed method design in two steps. First, qualitative research was conducted using conventional content analysis on 45 participants. The semi-structured, in-depth interviews (nurses, head nurses, and nurse managers) were performed, and data were analyzed using the eight steps of Elo and Kyngas. Second, based on the categories extracted from the first phase of the study and review of literature, 215 items were designed and analyzed in a methodological process. Results: The results of the first phase consisted of three themes, including task rearing role, personality rearing role, and knowledge rearing role. Exploratory factor analysis leads to the formation of three factors: professional abilities with 18 items, individual abilities with seven items, and scientific and educational abilities with six items. Calculating Cronbach’s alpha coefficient confirmed high internal consistency in the scale (0.94). Conclusions: This tool could be used in teaching hospitals to evaluate the situation of working while studying in hospitals at different levels. With this tool, nursing managers can optimize educational environments and plan the workshops and training courses for nurses working in the departments in order to strengthen the qualifications of nursing students while working and graduating.
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