In the nursing profession it is necessary for a nurse to engage in continuing education to keep up to date. In Lebanon efforts to establish such continuing education are being made. However, a cross-sectional study conducted on a representative sample of 254 nurses found that 60 per cent attend an insufficient number of continuing education sessions per year. Attendees are mainly older, married senior nurses with long professional experience; they evaluated the aspects of these sessions positively, but denied that they made any constructive difference to the evolution of their careers. It is clear that the objectives of continuing education need to be clarified for nurses; to this end, prospects for promotion would be welcome to further motivate attendees.