Exploring Mentees' Perceptions of an Undergraduate Nurse Peer Mentorship Program

Abstract

Study findings support the need for broad evaluations of peer mentorship programs and can inform educational leaders to improve mentorship support available for nursing students. [J Nurs Educ. 2017;56(4):227-230.].

Group mentorship programme for graduating nursing students to facilitate their transition: A pilot study

“…Students reported that the programme helped reduce their stress levels, gave them tools to deal with difficult situations, and increased their self‐confidence as well as their motivation towards their nursing career. This is in line with past research, which also reported increased motivation, enthusiasm, self confidence, and decreased anxiety and stress following mentoring programmes (Kaihlanen et al, ; Kim et al, ; Lombardo et al, ). Students in the present study also reported having gained valuable knowledge regarding how to deal with real work situations as much with colleagues and superiors as with clients through discussion with the mentors.…”

“…The main particularity of this group mentorship programme was that it was carried out in the educational environment. Most past mentoring research focused on either formal mentoring programmes in the workplace (Cottingham et al, 2011), or informal mentoring relationships that evolved naturally in the workplace (Tourigny & Pulich, 2005), or peer-to-peer mentoring relationships in the education environment (Kim et al, 2013;Lombardo et al, 2017).…”

“…However, they found no significant differences in state anxiety and self‐efficacy between the two groups (Kim et al, ). More recently, a similar peer‐to‐peer mentoring programme was developed in a large Canadian university where more senior nursing students were paired with more junior students (Lombardo et al, ). After 1 year of mentoring, mentees reported, among other things, a positive impact on their stress levels and their feelings of belonging to the nursing community, as well as an increased passion for nursing as a career choice.…”

“…Very few studies have specifically investigated the impact of mentoring nursing students in the academic environment during their last year of training. Some research has focused on peer-to-peer mentoring to help new nursing students adapt to the academic environment (e.g., Lombardo, Wong, Sanzone, Filion, & Tsimicalis, 2017) or to the clinical environment. One example of a mentorship programme in clinical setting was from a group of Finnish authors (Kaihlanen, Lakanmaa, & Salminen, 2013).…”

Insights from Clinics: Stress among Nursing Students

“…Studying in this way can help students learn more meaningfully, instead of rote-learning. Mentorship by first-year students also provides crucial support to new students and helps them make effective networks that can come into use in the future (Lombardo et al, 2017). Most of the students felt that their teachers helped them deal with their personal problems.…”