Social networking in nursing education: integrative literature review.

OBJECTIVE: to identify the use of social networking in nursing education.

METHOD: integrative literature review in the databases: LILACS, IBECS, Cochrane, BDENF, SciELO, CINAHL, Scopus, PubMed, CAPES Periodicals Portal and Web of Science, using the descriptors: social networking and nursing education and the keywords: social networking sites and nursing education, carried out in April 2015.

RESULTS: of the 489 articles found, only 14 met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Most studies were published after 2013 (57%), originating from the United States and United Kingdom (77.8%). It was observed the use of social networking among nursing students, postgraduate students, mentors and nurses, in undergraduate programmes, hybrid education (blended-learning) and in interprofessional education. The social networking sites used in the teaching and learning process were Facebook (42.8%), Ning (28.5%), Twitter (21.4%) and MySpace (7.1%), by means of audios, videos, quizzes, animations, forums, guidance, support, discussions and research group.

CONCLUSION: few experiences of the use of social networking in nursing education were found and their contributions show the numerous benefits and difficulties faced, providing resourses for the improvement and revaluation of their use in the teaching and learning process.