The Determinants of Nursing Continuous Professional Development: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Continuous professional development (CPD) is essential for sustaining nursing competence, supporting career progression, and strengthening care quality in health systems characterised by rapid clinical and technological change. Yet nurses’ engagement in CPD remains uneven across settings because participation is shaped by interacting personal, organisational, and contextual determinants. This systematic review synthesises evidence on determinants of nursing CPD, with specific attention to barriers, facilitators, and implementation conditions that influence sustained participation. The review was conducted using a structured systematic design guided by established reporting and evidence-synthesis standards. Across the included studies, nurses consistently recognised CPD as professionally necessary and clinically valuable for updating knowledge, strengthening confidence, and enhancing patient care. However, participation was frequently constrained by time pressure, high workload, staffing shortages, financial costs, scheduling inflexibility, and limited managerial support. Stable facilitators included clear relevance of CPD to practice, supportive leadership, protected learning time, accessible delivery formats (including blended and online approaches), and organisational cultures that value learning. The synthesis further indicates that CPD needs and barriers vary by career stage, with novice and experienced nurses facing different motivational drivers and practical constraints. Overall, the evidence supports a systems perspective in which CPD participation is produced through alignment between individual professional goals and organisational and policy mechanisms that enable equitable access, workload planning, and context-sensitive programme design.