Impacts of information and communication technologies as a permanent health education strategy for nursing professionals

Abstract

Introduction: Information and communication technologies are useful in the processing, storage, and transmission of information. In the field of health, they provide an improvement in the quality of life of people and advances in the work process of professionals through the optimization of resources and the promotion of technological innovation with high social impact. Objective: Identify in the literature the impacts of information and communication technologies in permanent health education for nursing professionals. Method: It is an integrative review of the literature that has the following guiding question: "What are the impacts of information and communication technologies as a permanent health education strategy for nursing professionals?". The compilation of publications was carried out from September to October 2020, in the PubMed Central databases: PMC, Web of Science, CINAHL, SCOPUS y EMBASE. 2,296 articles were found, and then the inclusion criteria were applied: original research articles, that the subject answered the guiding question, open access, and that they were within the range from 2016 to 2020. The articles were read and analyzed, and 7 were selected for the final sample. Results: After analyzing the studies, 3 thematic categorizations were formed: "Advantages of lifelong education through ICT"; "The challenges of permanent education through the e-learning model"; and "Improvement of permanent education through ICT". Conclusion: The positive performance of the use of Information and Communication Technologies is identified as a tool used by nurses in permanent education, great practicality and better accessibility to the most varied topics addressed in these learning processes.