Background & objectives: Despite the long history of neonatal resuscitation program, there are still major concerns about poor neonatal resuscitation performance (NRP) in hospitals. Since addressing the barriers to successful NRP may help preventing the potential risks to future neonates, the present study aimed to identify such barriers from the perspective of nurses and physicians.

  Methods: In a descriptive-analytic study in 2013, 119 nurses and 85 physicians, employed at five teaching hospitals affiliated to Shahid Beheshti and Iran University of Medical Sciences were selected based on criteria for the study . Data were collected through a researcher-made questionnaire. All data were analyzed by SPSS v.16, descriptive (frequency, mean, and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (Fisher exact test, T test and chi-square).

  Results: From total samples, 95 nurses (80%) and 75 physicians (88%) had an experience of doing resuscitation. The most important barriers to successful NRP from nurses and physicians point of view were: stress and tension in resuscitation (88.6%), failure to select team members based on work experience and skills in resuscitation (88.2%), and organize them to perform the steps of resuscitation (84.9%), abnormalities and serious respiratory problems (84.9%), low gestational age of newborn (81.5%), lack of safety (80.7%) and sufficiency of equipments (79%), high workload (79.8%), lack of training courses (78.2%) and inadequate skills (79.8%).

  Conclusion: According to the perspectives about NRP, greater attention of hospital officials would be necessary to form a team of competent and coherent NR and personnel training who involved in NR by emphasizing and clarifying these barriers.