Abstract
Background: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have gradually become one of the most important topics in the field of higher health education. However, no systematic review has been conducted on this type of education in the field of health.
Methods: This study is a narrative review of published research from January 2012 to March 2023 using a precise search in five databases: Web of Science, PubMed, SID, Cochrane Library, and Magiran, as well as, Google and Google Scholar, using the keywords “MOOC,” “Massive Open Online Course,” “Health,” and “Medic*,” and their Persian equivalents. Out of the 1129 articles reviewed, 41 articles studies met the inclusion criteria. Studies that focused on MOOCs but examined areas beyond the scope of health and medical sciences were excluded from this study.
Results: There is significant evidence of a relationship between MOOC courses and their effective outcomes in the field of health. Based on the findings, six key themes emerged: online complementary education for students, educators, and physicians; health literacy promotion; job skill training; patient-centered education; general public education; prevention and treatment.
Conclusion: Today, MOOCs are at the forefront of improving the quality of healthcare, prevention, treatment, and health literacy in response to economic crises and sudden epidemics worldwide. Improving health factors, increasing health literacy, adopting healthy lifestyles, job-related training, expanding interdisciplinary collaborations, responding to sudden health crises, increasing global aging population, reducing health inequalities, increasing food insecurity, and drug abuse, decreasing in-person training during epidemics, increasing dropouts from traditional education, and recognizing the importance of health tourism require skill acquisition.