Opportunities and Threats of E-Learning in Nursing Education: An Overview of Reviews

E-learning is increasingly replacing traditional methods in medical science education. The main purpose of this study is to identify opportunities, threats and required components of E-learning in nursing education.

We conducted a comprehensive systematic review following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, searching Web of Science, Scopus, ProQuest, Cochrane Library, ScienceDirect, Medline/PubMed, Google Scholar, and SID, Irandoc, and Magiran databases without time or language restrictions. Two researchers assessed each systematic review using A Measurement Tool to assess systematic Reviews (AMSTAR). This overview includes 47 reviews published until the end of 2022.

Electronic education in nursing offers opportunities categorized into 10 areas: accessibility and flexibility, efficiency and effectiveness, strengthening clinical competencies, features of electronic education, improving educational processes, improving the quality of education, evaluation and feedback, diversity and practically of content, setting learning environment and promotion of nursing professors' role. However, there are also challenges, grouped into 10 categories: challenges of evaluation and feedback, problems related to the of human resources development, structural and technical limitations, challenges related to communication and interaction, challenges related to the content of education, financial challenges, organizational challenges, cultural challenges, challenges of professional competence, challenges of ethics and information security. The essential components for effective electronic teaching in nursing education are organized into 6 categories: technological infrastructure, human infrastructure, pedagogical infrastructure, cultural and social infrastructure, economic infrastructure, and management and leadership infrastructure.

E-learning offers an efficient and effective training method for nurses that should be embraced given advances in science and technology. Addressing infrastructure limitations will further enhance its benefits.