A literature survey revealed a number of studies dealing with continuing education for nurses. There appeared to be little information dealing with diffusion of information pertaining to Continuing Nursing Education and even that available did not deal specifically with the relationships under study in this research. The study specifically dealt with diffusion of information and attempted to determine the channels and factors which were preferred for awareness, as well as those channels that were viewed as most important for encouraging enrollment in Continuing Nursing Education. An attempt was also made to determine the relationship between the channels of communication and the nurses' extent of participation in activities. The study, further, made an effort to determine the factors that affected utilization of services.

A questionnaire was mailed to a random sample drawn from the 37,146 actively practicing nurses in the State of Tennessee. Two hundred seventy-six returned questionnaires furnished the data for this study.

Frequency distributions were prepared for each variable. Cross-tabulations were used to compare certain demographic data and other variables to certain independent variables for purposes of determining associations and trends. Chi squares and levels of significance were calculated. Spearman's correlation coefficient was used to compare certain demographic data with the rank order independent variables. These statistics were displayed in tables. The tables showing the greatest relevancy were documented in this study.

The results showed that nurses preferred brochures for awareness and also for encouraging participation in Continuing Nursing Education. The significant factors affecting utilization of services listed in priority order were: course content, relevance to practice, and time, place, cost. The only relationship between channels of communication and the nurses' extent of participation was shown for catalogs and Continuing Nursing Education provider representative. This indicated that the more continuing education activities the nurses attended, the less likely they were to use catalogs and Continuing Nursing Education provider representative for influencing the decision to attend. This research suggested ideas for further study.