.Given the importance of continuing education to improve nursing practice, research has been done to study the phenomenon of nursing staff members' participation and to try and explain the reasons that motivate individuals to take part in continuing education activities. Results have found that motivational orientations of nursing staff are the main force to start participatory behavior, which can also be positively and/or negative influenced by demographic variables, life situation and the structure of the education opportunity (9)(10) .In some countries, nurses' participation in continuing education has been made obligatory, based on the premise that professionals lack motivation to voluntarily update their knowledge and skills without external pressure. However, studies carried out in places where participation is obligatory haveconcluded that these groups demonstrate the same pattern of motivational orientations as professionals who voluntarily take part in continuing education, that is, they are motivated by cognitive interests and by a desire for professional advancement (3,9-10) . and teaching strategies to the participants' needs (9) . If, as shown by current research, continuing education contributes to the quality of nursing care, the reasons that influence professionals' participation become more significant for the nursing profession (11)(12) . These are some of the elements that constituted the base for this study. We aim to study the effect of personal and professional factors, as well as motivational orientations, on the participation of nursing staff at two health institutions, one public and another private.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKMost people cannot express the reasons for getting involved in an activity as complex as continuing education. Initial studies found that individuals participating in continuing education stood out by their type of motivation to participate and were classified in three groups: the first was classified as "goal-oriented", that is, people using education as a way of achieving clear objectives.The second group of "activity-oriented" professionals participate for reasons unrelated to the objectives or contents of the activities they enroll in.They take courses to join groups, looking for social contact. Their relation to the activity is essentially based on the quantity and type of human relations they can obtain. The third group is "learning-oriented" and seeks knowledge for its own value. Although the author observed that this is not a rigid classification and that the types of motivation are probably represented best by three superposed circles, distinction is clearly the main emphasis (13) .Later, based on the above classification, the reasons were identified why individuals participate in continuing education. These have been described as motivational orientations, that is, the dimensions underlying the reasons for participating in continuing education programs, which reflect the individual's current level of needs, beliefs, values, attitudes and perceptions related to ...