To investigate the ability and current situation of nursing undergraduates to use social media for health education, and analyze the impact of social media health education experience on the ability of nursing undergraduates to use social media, so as to provide reference information for the design of nursing undergraduates' health education courses in the future.

Using the convenient sampling method,from May to September 2019, 147 nursing undergraduates from four medical colleges in Beijing were selected, and the general information questionnaire and the Chinese version of Social Media Competency Inventory were used for the questionnaire survey. Using the objective sampling method, the 20 nursing undergraduates were selected for semi-structured interview.

57.14%(84/147) of nursing undergraduates had used social media for health education at the undergraduate stage. Among the scores of all dimensions of social media ability, the scores of social media self-efficacy (4.42 points per item) and performance expectation (3.31 points per item) were higher. In the interview, nursing undergraduates believed that after college training, the ability of using publicity tools and making carriers, the ability of information selection and transmission, the ability of teamwork and other social media applications were improved.

The current situation of applying social media to health education for nursing undergraduates needs to be further improved, and the ability of applying social media to health education has great room for improvement. Social media health education experience can effectively improve their abilities related to social media application.It is suggested that the relevant courses and training of applying social media to health education should be promoted in undergraduate nursing education in Colleges and universities.

Health education; Nursing students; Social media