The American Nurses Association has defined continuing education as learning activities that build upon education and experience for the enhancement of practice, education, administration, leadership, research and theory development to improve health. Mandatory continuing education for license renewal would be evidenced by the attainment of continuing education credits.
Nursing research supports a link between continuing education and improved patient outcomes.
The majority of studies focused upon non-mandatory continuing education programs. Research findings speak to a positive impact on nurse performance and to a perception by nurses that attendance of continuing education programs does improve performance. This latter finding was more marked in the mandatory continuing education states. Studies of voluntarily attended continuing education programs by nurses, found that the nurse with a higher educational level and the greatest number of working hours had a higher level of continuing education attendance. Nurses who had attended the least number of continuing education programs were employed in single-nurse situations such as schools, clinics or physician offices and had a lower level of education.