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Thursday, September 20, 2012
Learning Objective 1: Understand the importance and benefits of a peer mentorship program in a baccalaureate nursing program.
Learning Objective 2: Describe the challenges of a face-to-face mentorship program, and the advantages of an online format.
Anxiety and apprehension have been observed in beginning nursing students as a recurrent pattern. This anxiety, coupled with an increased information the student must retain in order to be successful, contributes to an increase in withdrawals from nursing programs nationwide, and decreased satisfaction in retained nursing students. The purpose of this review is to assess current evidence on the effectiveness of student peer-mentoring programs on increasing retention and student satisfaction, focusing specifically on online mentoring programs and their utility in an undergraduate nursing program. Results showed that a successful peer mentoring program could be a valuable component in nursing student education to reduce student anxiety, provide a positive learning environment, boost self-confidence, lessen confusion, and increase student interaction at various levels of the curriculum. Improved retention rates and satisfaction among first semester clinical nursing students have also been observed with early mentoring. Challenges include finding time to meet mentor, in combination with other expectations. An e-peer mentoring strategy was developed that pairs junior level nursing students with senior nursing students in a baccalaureate nursing program. Student satisfaction and retention will be measured. An e-mentoring program could be a necessary component to foster relationships between excelling senior nursing students and junior nursing students, and allow for support with regards to class load, coursework, school, and outside stressors. This relationship will allow for collaboration of ideas, and provide perspective for the senior mentor in terms of growth and knowledge base. Mentors will likely benefit from the mentoring experience by incorporating new perspectives into their practice, demonstrating improved leadership, coaching and listening skills, and becoming more engaged in their work.