Effectiveness of nursing clinical mentors

Abstract

EFFECTIVENESS OF NURSING CLINICAL MENTORS

Aim. To explore effectiveness of nursing clinical mentors.

Material and methods. The subjects were 56 third-year students of Nursing of undergraduate studies and 17 of their clinical mentors from J.J. Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Medicine Osijek. The research was conducted at Clinical Hospital Centre Osijek, Department of Surgery, divided in two parts.
The first part (prior to clinical practice) examined students’ expectations of effective nursing clinical mentors. The second part (after completing clinical practice) examined and compared evaluations and self-evaluations of mentor effectiveness. The research instrument was a questionnaire containing six categories (52 criteria) for assessment of effective nursing clinical mentors taken from The Nursing Clinical Teacher Effectiveness Inventory (Mogan & Knox) and Observations of Nursing Teachers in Clinical Settings (Mogan & Warbinek). Numerical data were described using basic mean and dispersion measures. For exploring differences between three independent groups Kruskal Wallis test was used and Mann-Whitney test was used to compare two groups. The obtained data were analysed statistically at a significance level of α=0.05.

Results. The most desirable mentor qualities, expected by students, are correcting student mistakes without belittling, being well-organized and providing clear explanations. Least important are: enthusiasm, adapting instructions to students’ level of competence, discussing new developments in the area they are covering. Mentor self-evaluation was significantly higher compared to students’ expectations and students’ evaluation of mentors’ effectiveness (p<0.001). There are no significant differences between expectations and evaluation within categories, although, they are present within more than half of criteria students marked important: correcting students’ mistakes without belittling (p=0.001), being well- organized (p=0.039) and providing clear explanations (p=<0.001).

Conclusions. Continuous monitoring and evaluation of mentoring process is a key factor for better quality of professional education and advancement of nurses.