Introduction: In response to the community need, it is necessary nursing staff in their professional performance to use complementary therapies. The related barriers should be identified to provide appropriate strategies for integrating these therapies into the clinical nursing practice. So, this study was designed to assess clinical nurses' perceptions about the application barriers of the complementary therapies in clinical nursing practice.

Methods: This qualitative content analysis study was done from June 2014 to July 2015 in Iran. Sampling was done purposively and ended after reaching data saturation. In-depth and Semi-structured interviews were done with fifteen nurses and two physicians who had rich experience. Concurrently with data collection, the data were analyzed via the conventional content analysis approach. Max QDA software was used to help data organizing and analyzing.

Results: In relation to research objective, the study participants’ perceptions fell into five main categories of ‘insufficient knowledge of nurse’, ‘the barriers related to nurse's cultural and mental conditions’, ‘unsuitable conditions and facilities', ‘the obstacles related to non-nursing Personal ' and ‘inadequate support of non-nursing managers’ from which, the two main theme of ‘inadequate preparation of nurse' and ‘organizational limiters' were abstracted.

Conclusion: Inadequate preparation of nurse and organizational limiters create problem for nurses and act as inhibitor of complementary therapies application in clinical practice. The awareness of these two themes attributes is useful for Authorities to designing guidelines related to integration of complementary therapies into nursing practice.