Challenges of Applying Continuing Education in Tehran Hospital Practice as Viewed By Nurses

BACKGROUND Although many planners of professional continuing education programs believe that this type of education positively affects the nurses' performance, the results obtained by conducted research do not confirm such a perspective. In fact, inadequate application of these trainings in clinical practice is among the most challenging areas in nursing practices. Hence, this study was conducted to describe the challenges nurses encounter in order to apply what they have learned during continuing education programs in clinical settings of TUMS hospitals. METHODS This cross-sectional study was conducted on 400 medical-surgical nurses who worked in the hospitals of Tehran University of Medical sciences. For sampling, after listing all the general hospitals, their wards were selected in proportion to hospital. Nurses filled out a questionnaire about factors affecting the application of continuing education. The questionnaire contained 43 items and the dimensions were supportive-organizational, individual, professional, and educational program design factors. The analysis was carried out using parametric and non-parametric method using SPSS 16 package. RESULTS The results showed while 48.5% and 53.8% of nurses mentioned organizational and professional factors, respectively as the most inhibiting factors; only 2.25% of the nurses believed that organizational factors are facilitating. CONCLUSION The results obtained in this study are important regarding the fact that organizational and professional factors have a key role in applying or lack of application of learned materials. Thus, hospital authorities as well as nursing managers can provide the necessary condition in application of continuing education through promotion of facilitating factors and eliminating the hindering ones.