Lifelong Learning in Nursing: Perceptions and Realities

Today, where the information is constantly renewed, nothing is stable and change is the keyword, reasons such as the continuousness and speed of change, globalization, informational economy, competition between national economies, unemployment, personal employment, information, increase of the produced information in parallel with the development of informational, communicational and technological facilities and the fact that these information have lost their currency with the same speed, etc. have caused the information, skills and attitudes that are brought in educational institutions to become insuffi cient in the course of time and made the necessity for individuals to reach the up-to-date information required to develop individually, occupationally and socially a current issue. These changes and developments of today have made it inevitable for individuals to consider the new educational targets and strategies, which will play a role related not only with the already known matters, but also the unknown matters that might be encountered in the future. In other words, it has made it compulsory to approach the learning as a process that continues lifelong outside of school and caused the emergence of the understanding of lifelong learning. Reasons such as the advanced and new technologies that have started to be used in health care services, rapid changes in patient treatment and care, expectation of individuals regarding a better health care service, refl ection of the rapidly developing scientifi c information on nursing applications, requisite for updating the nursing information and skills, increase of the tendency in specialization, etc. have made and are making the lifelong learning compulsory for nurses, as well.