PARTICIPATION IN CONTINUING EDUCATION BY NURSES IN NEBRASKA

The purpose of this study was to analyze the participation of nurses in Nebraska in continuing education programs and to determine whether a relationship exists among participation, the nurses\u27 attitudes, and their perception of their ability to apply knowledge gained in their perspective work settings. Data are reported on a random sample of 281 registered nurses residing in the State of Nebraska. The author developed instrument was designed to collect personal data, the total number of hours of continuing education received from January 1, 1979 to the present (October 1,1981), the continuing education hours in three different, but nursing related categories, factors related to attending continuing education and evaluation of continuing education in terms of applicability of availability. A Likert scale was used for response to questions concerning evaluation and applicability. Utilizing Cronbach\u27s Alpha, the internal reliability of the instrument was 0.906. The instrument was judged to contain a high degree of content validity by the Continuing Education Committee of the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing. The data were analyzed using the SPSS program. Statistical procedures employed were frequency distribution, multiple regression, and analysis of variance. The general conclusions to be drawn from this study are (a) participation in continuing education is generally low but when nurses do participate they tend to attend programs that are beneficial to them in their practice; (b) programs attended in the major clinical, teaching, or practice area are influential in maintaining or improving the nurses ability to provide care and the program content was applicable to practice; and (c) continuing education generally is negatively viewed as being beneficial