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Continuing professional development: does it make a difference?
Author(s) -
Tennant Shirley,
Field Ray
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
nursing in critical care
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.689
H-Index - 43
eISSN - 1478-5153
pISSN - 1362-1017
DOI - 10.1111/j.1362-1017.2004.00071.x
Subject(s) - unit (ring theory) , service (business) , scale (ratio) , professional development , continuing professional development , nursing , medical education , psychology , medicine , business , marketing , physics , mathematics education , quantum mechanics
Summary • Continuing professional development (CPD) is costly in terms of both organizational resources and personal time and effort • It forms an important part of the strategy for modernizing the health service and is an expectation of qualified nurses • There is little evidence to demonstrate the impact of CPD in terms of improved patient care and services • A small pilot study was undertaken. A group of intensive therapy unit (ITU) managers developed a goal attainment scale (GAS) to evaluate the impact of an ITU course. Results suggest that the ITU course did make a difference to the development of ITU nurses, but the nurses who did not take the course also developed • This has implications for service providers and educationalists in terms of expectations, timing and content of courses • The GAS was a useful tool as an approach to evaluating the impact of CPD but requires more rigorous testing before it can be described as reliable and valid