Development of an interactive online course for nurses about compression therapy for venous leg ulcers

Introduction: Venous leg ulcers constitute an important health problem that affects patients life quality due to the time those ulcers lead to heal and the  high frequency of recurrences. The main prevention, control and treatment method of this disease is the compression therapy. However, there are a lot of difficulties on clinical practice concerned to indication, application and prescription of the different available compression systems what alters outcomes on patients care.

Objective: Development of an online course about venous leg ulcers with special attention on compression therapy to better capacitate nurses.

Methods: Research of technological production that followed the stages of conception, planning and development, based on a contextualized instruction design. The online course development methodology was characterized by a constructive proposal, aiming to promote the pupil participation during the course. It is offered online the main national and international references, the main systematic reviews, international consensuses and studies of cases. It is also available interactive multimedia tools and didactic resources as videos, illustrations, text links, photos, including images of the Virtual Man Project.

Results: Didactic resources and the media production had been developed with emphasis in the content, the activities and the communication/interaction, structuralized in the virtual environment of learning, named Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment). This environment of learning is a free software for online courses creation and for learning support. This plataform has being used for professional qualification and formation by several educational institutions on online courses by distance and also as a complementary tool on traditional courses.

Conclusions: Ahead the technological evolution and the requirements of constant update, the nursing education cannot be away of new technologies for professional qualification. This course constitutes an available, innovating, flexible, and interactive tool for nurses, contributing for their qualification concerning to the venous leg ulcers patients care.