A Mentoring Program for Coping with Stress and Improving Self-Esteem for Middle School Girls from Low Income Families

Shin, YunHee

Monday, July 11, 2011

YunHee Shin, RN, PhD
Department of Nursing, Yonsei University, Wonju College of Medicine, Wonju, South Korea

Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to identify the effects of a mentoring program as a developmentally appropriate intervention for adolescents from low income families.

Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to identify the positive effects for both mentor and mentee of school based program through mentoring by nursing students.

Purpose: Backgroud: Adolescents as a group are known to be unstable and have many conflicts due to rapid physical, social, and emotional changes. In adolescence, it is very important to establish positive self-esteem by coping with many stresses related to developmental tasks so as to become healthy adults. Adolescents from low income families should be more concerned to overcome many difficulties arising from their home environment and to improve their self-esteem. Mentoring is an important teaching-learning process and it has positive effects on both mentor and mentee. Purposes: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a mentoring program to cope with stress and to improve self-esteem for middle school girls from low income families.

Methods: A non-equivalent control group, pretest-posttest design was used in this study. The independent variable was the mentoring program, in which the mentors were nursing students and the mentees were middle school girls from low income families. The dependent variables were stress and mental health scores, and self-esteem scores. The program was conducted using various methods including group activities and personal approaches through the mentor-mentee relationship. The program was conducted between September and December, 2010 in a middle school in Wonju, South Korea. The data will be analyzed using Statistical Analysis System (SAS).

Results: At follow-up, the mentoring program will show significant effects on coping with stress and improving self-esteem among the middle school girls from low income families.

Conclusion: This mentoring program will be suggested as having potential as a developmentally appropriate intervention for stress management and self-esteem improvement of adolescents from low income families and will enable nursing students participating in the program as mentors to gain confidence in their professional capability.

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