Nurses’ Assessment of the Mandatory Continuing Professional Development Program in Osun State, Southwest, Nigeria

Abstract:

Continuing Professional Development Programs have been identified as an important strategy towards improving basic professional skills and competence of health care professionals. This study explored nurses’ perception about the Mandatory Continuing Professional Development Program (MCPDP) and assessed nurses’ satisfaction with the Continuing Professional Development Program in Nigeria. Study adopted sequential explanatory mixed methods, using both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. The quantitative aspect included 412 nurses in Osun state, Nigeria selected through multistage sampling. Data was analyzed at univariate, bivariate and multivariate levels using appropriate statistics, level of significance was p<0.05. The qualitative aspect of the study employed in-depth interview; responses were analyzed thematically. Findings showed that 72.8% of the nurses had positive perception about the MCPDP, 66.3% assessed the MCPDP training as very useful, 31.3% and 2.4% assessed the training as moderately useful and useful respectively, 57.0% were very satisfied with the MCPDP training, 41.5% were satisfied while1.5% nurses were indifferent. Regression analysis revealed that nurses’ years of working experience (OR = 0.24, CI = 0.10-0.62, p = 0.003) significantly influenced perception about the MCPDP. Study concluded that professionalism in nursing should focus on ensuring quality years of working experience and effective Continuous Professional Development for all categories of nurses.