Does continuing education in gerontology lead to changes in nursing practice?

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Gerontological Nursing
• Healthcare Professional Development

Background:

• Continuing education (CE) aims to support nurses' professional development, lifelong learning, and safe practice.
• Establishing the impact of CE on nursing practice and patient outcomes remains a challenge.
• Current evaluation methods for CE are varied, program-specific, and often focus on teaching strategies rather than practice change.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe two models of continuing education (CE) programs in gerontological nursing for practicing registered nurses (RNs).
• To evaluate the effectiveness of interactive and collaborative teaching strategies in improving best practices in geriatric nursing.
• To assess changes in nursing practice resulting from the implemented CE programs.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of two distinct CE program models focused on gerontological nursing.
• Utilization of interactive and collaborative teaching strategies within the CE programs.
• Assessment of changes in nursing practice following program participation.

Main Results:

• The described CE models successfully employed interactive and collaborative teaching methods.
• Evidence of changes in nursing practice related to geriatric nursing best practices was observed.
• The study provides insights into the implementation and impact of specialized nursing CE.

Conclusions:

• Interactive and collaborative teaching strategies can be effective in CE for gerontological nursing.
• These CE models demonstrate potential for improving nursing practice and patient care in geriatrics.
• Further evaluation is needed to fully quantify the impact on patient outcomes.