Diffusion of social media in nursing education: A scoping review

Objectives: – To undertake a literature search for articles related to the diffusion of SoMe in nursing education – To analyse and synthesise the scope of literature, including types of articles, methods and sources, geographical origin, and chronology – To draw conclusions about SoMe diffusion in nursing education from the literature reviewed Design: Scoping review using Arksey and O'Malley framework to synthesise the data. Settings: A global scoping review was undertaken to investigate SoMe diffusion in pre-registration nursing education. Participants: Pre-registration student nurses. Methods: A protocol was created and reported following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews Checklist. 10 data bases were searched: Academic Search Ultimate; CINAHL Complete; CINAHL Ultimate; eBook Collection (EBSCOhost); eBook Nursing Collection; E-Journals; MEDLINE Complete; Teacher Reference Center and Google Scholar. Results: 1651 articles were derived from the search and 27 articles were included in this review. Timeline, geographical origin, methodology and findings of evidence are presented. Conclusions: SoMe is an innovation with relatively high perceived attributes, especially from students' perspectives. There is a difference between SoMe adoption in learning by nursing students and universities and the dichotomy between curriculum and nursing students' learning needs. The adoption process is not yet completed for universities. To be able to support learning, nurse educators and university systems should find ways of diffusing SoMe innovation in learning.