Running head: EFFECTIVENESS OF MENTOR PROGRAMS 1

Effectiveness of Mentor Programs

Name

Institution
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Effectiveness of Mentor Programs to improve new nurse retention rates

The shortage of nurses is a major problem in the healthcare delivery industry. The cost of

healthcare delivery is significantly increasing every year due to the difficulty in retaining of

nurses and dealing with the high rate of workers turnover. As the current workforce of nurses

are getting old and retiring, the process of finding full replacement has always proven

ineffective. In as much as there is an increase of graduate nurses by 5.7 percent in United States

in 2015, the health care facilities still face shortage of nurses and still expects a similar trend in

the future if a corrective mechanism is not put in place[ CITATION All17 \l 1033 ]. Most of the

novice nurses always quit their jobs soon after being employed because of being frustrated by the

workplace environment. They clearly confess that they lack the experience and adequacy to deal

with such kind of constraints and a mix of low self-concept and self-doubt[ CITATION All17 \l

1033 ]. According to peer-mentors, experience is the highest authority and the touchstone of

validity, therefore, to deal with this kind of situation, the novice nurses must be trained and

mentored on workplace experience to boost their sense of adequacy, self-concept and self-

confidence while giving them an opportunity to learn how to deal with workplace pressure,

discouragement and exhaustion. This paper will discuss and synthesize five sources relating to

peer-mentorship programs for nurses aiming at increasing their retention rate and reduce

turnover. The PICOT question for this paper is presented below.

PICOT QUESTION

Does implementing and assigning peer mentor coaches for new graduate nurses (I)

implemented over six months (T) result in higher retention rates (O) of new graduate nurses on a

short-stay unit (P) compared to nurses who aren’t assigned a peer mentor (C).
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P- New graduate nurse: these are inexperienced nurses who are just beginning their

career and having a difficulty dealing with their workplace pressure thus opt to quit their

jobs[ CITATION All17 \l 1033 ].

I- Implementing, assigning peer mentor coaches for new graduate nurses: there should be

increased interaction between mentors the novice nurses as a way of training them to gain self-

confidence and experience of dealing with workplace pressure and trauma.

C- Compare to nurses who aren’t assigned a mentor: research shows that higher

percentage of nurses who were subjected to peer-mentorship programs retains their work

compared to the ones that do not undergo mentorship programs[ CITATION All17 \l 1033 ].

O- Higher retention rates: this implies that mentorship programs increases the retention

rates while reduces the rate of turnover.

T- 6 months: this is the time for which a research is done to compare the effect of

mentorship programs and do a comparison.

Annotated Bibliography

Verret, G., & Lin, V. (2016). Easing the Transition: An Innovative Generational

Approach to Peer Mentoring for New Graduate Nurses. Journal of Pedriatic Medicine, 745-756.

In this article, novice nurses have shown their desire to be helped deal with personal

experiences that they meet at the workplace. It supports the idea of hospital institutions to adopt

training and mentorship programs to help the unexperienced nurse to have a smooth transition

from graduation to successful professionals. This claim is supported by Vergara in his article
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“Implementation of a Mentorship program to Increase Staff Satisfaction and Retention”

statistically stating the peer mentorship objectives as increasing nurses’ satisfaction, decrease

rate of turnover by 50% percent and achieving a high rate of retention of up to 90 percent. The

article agrees to the fact that the number of graduate nurses increases every year however, the

competence gradient of novice nurses is very low. Participating in nursing mentorship programs

enables nurses to have a greater career satisfaction and to positively deal to workplace pressure.

Verret argues that mentoring programs have a direct link to stress management. If a novice nurse

is mentored properly with sufficient guidance, they gain confidence in themselves helping them

become independent professionals boosting their innovativeness and resiliency in dealing with

recurrent problems. Jewell, in his article “Supporting the Novice Nurse to Fly,” extends the

proposal of Verret by providing a quality selection process for better mentorship programs

among many available alternative. This implies, effective mentorship can only occur efficiently

if appropriate exercises and programs are deployed at the time of engagement.

Zhang, Y., & Qian, Y. (2016). The Effectiveness and Implementation of mentoring

Program for Newly Graduated Nurses: A Systematic Review. Nurse Education Today, 136-144.

Zhang agrees to the fact there different mentorship exercises that can be developed for

novice, however, it is important to note that, among the many alternative it is prudent to select

quality programs that can effect change. The selected programs should be elaborate enough but

cost effective. Mentors are very crucial in mentoring exercises because they effect the delivery of

these services. This implies that mentors should be people who are to committed, experienced,

skilled and with positive attitude to changing the problem at hand. Jewell, supports this idea by

providing a criterion for selecting mentors which promotes a successful transition. However,

while mentorship is an important program for increasing job retention, there are barriers to
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effective mentorship process. Zhang attributes the barriers to three persons: the mentor, the

mentee and the organization. Time constraints, space limitations and scheduling are the major

problems faced. Verret notices that very little has been done to deal with such barriers and thus

recommends a further research on the same to identify potential barriers for every hospital set-up

and provide the mechanisms to influence an effective mentorship program. Zhang reveals that

effective mentorship is the key tool for fighting the high rate of turnover and worker shortage.

Schroyer, C. C. (2016). Increasing Registered Nurse Retention Using Mentors in Critical

Care Services. Health Care Manager.

Schroyer in his article just like Verret, acknowledges that retention of healthcare nurses is

a major challenge facing healthcare for almost ten decades now. About 50 percent of nurses are

frustrated and dissatisfied with their jobs which makes them quit the jobs. Schroyer, just like

other writers in the previous articles suggest that mentorship programs helps develop nurses’

ability to deal with workplace trauma and thus become committed and successful professionals.

Schroyer’s basis of argument is built on Patricia Banner’s theory which suggest that successful

nurses have undergone various stages of development which consists of constructive stages of

mentorship. Just like Verret in his article, Schroyer advocates for nursing institutions to adopt

mentorship programs as a key measure of increasing nursing retention. Shortage of nurses in

hospitals is directly proportional to the retention rates. Retaining nurses seeks to address areas

such as staffing, average time of stay and provision of adequate services. Schroyer presents his

frustrations on the uneasy and frightening trend of nurses’ shortage since the 20th century. A

recent study on hospital set-ups as presented in this article suggest that mentorship assessment
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tools have proven to boost retention rates and improved nurses’ confidence, competence and

improved personal growth for better professionalism. These programs help articulate anxiety,

help in constructive management of emotions, provide opportunity to get to interact and engage

properly with good role models and facilitate dissemination of ethical and best practices.

Jewell, A. (2013). Supporting the Novice Nurse to Fly: A Literature Review. Nurse

Education In Practice, 323-327.

Jewell acknowledges that transition from a novice nurse to a successful professional can

be so difficult and is marred by huge obstacles and challenges. He describes the novice nurse as

an inexperienced beginner who is new to the profession and possess the inability to manage

profession conflicts and stress. This article agrees with Zhang that beginner nurses always have

the feeling of self-insufficiency and self-doubt. The article explores to a greater extent of

vulnerability of novices nurses and like other previous articles suggest mentorship as the key

treatment for their situation to have a positive influence in nursing profession. A study carried

out in Ottawa hospital has supported this argument with positive transition and increased

transition rates. In addition, mentoring the novice nurses does not only benefit them alone but

has a positive influence in the entire hospital campus. When the retention rate of nurses is

increased, there will be more nurses in the hospital set-ups to deal with the diverse consumer

needs. Patients will spend less time in the hospitals. Nurses can also spend more time with

patients and give them specialized care.

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Vergara, Y. J. (2017). Implementation of Mentorship Program to Increase Staff

Satisfaction and Retention in Critical Care. Nurse Leader, 207-2012.

Jeremy Vergara like the other writers of the articles mentioned believes that mentorship

increases job satisfaction. In this article, the healthcare facilities are being challenged to consider

administering peer-mentorship programs as a way of providing beginner nurses a satisfactory

feeling, staff retention and provide proper replacement for aging workforce. Jeremy also agrees

with previous reports that the cost of healthcare has significantly increased due to the increased

rate of worker-turnover. Hospital institutions should always work towards reducing the increased

rate of turnover by engaging their staffs in mentoring programs. Also, Vergara, acknowledges

that the current workforce is fast aging and there are many positions in the hospitals that needs

replacement and filling but the incoming workforce do not have sufficient confidence,

experience and self-concept to effectively manage those positions. Similar to Jewell’s idea, there

is need to select a proper mentoring team so that the programs initiated become productive and

help in increasing professional competence on novice nurses. Otherwise, if the team is not

effectively selected and activities planned, then the entire process would be partially or

completely ineffective.

Synthesis of Evidence

All the annotated bibliographies unanimously agree that high rate of turnover is a major

problem in the healthcare industry, a situation that has massively caused shortage of nurses all

over the world. Even though the number graduating nurses are increasing every year with a

positive index of 5.7% in 2015, hospital setups are still faced by the growing trend of shortage of

nurses. Also, Verret registers his concern about most hospitals not implementing mentorship
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programs regardless of knowing that mentorship is the key transformative approach of achieving

success from novice nurses. Novice nurses have a difficulty in transiting from graduation into

becoming successful professionals. Jewell describes the Novice nurse as inexperienced

beginners who have no experience to deal with work pressure. Thus, retention of nurse begins

from transforming novice nurses through various mentorship programs that provide both

emotional and professional support.

However, Zhang seem to disagree with this fact, suggesting that mentorship is not just

enough to transform novice nurses ability to becoming successful profession, rather quality and

carefully selected mentorship programs does. It is important to select quality services that can

provide a complete transformation from being inexperienced to self-sufficient and successful

professionals. These programs must be supported by quality, able and experienced mentors who

not only impart knowledge but also act as good mentors and role models to such nurses. Verret

suggests that this is the most effective way of gaining career satisfaction and instilling a sense of

self-confidence and positivity.

Vergara in an attempt to validate these claims comes up with a report conducted in a

modern and live hospital. He finds out that there is a significant increase in cost of healthcare

delivery by one percent of the totals expenditure in dealing with matters of workforce turnover.

This is also accompanied by growing shortages while the demand for specialized care increases

every day. This clearly shows that there is a major concern for need of conducting proper

leadership and mentorship trainings to improve professional growth and development, increase

self-concept and confidence and increase job satisfaction. He calls for rapid implementation of

mentorship initiatives to save the healthcare industry before it becomes paralyzed. A disturbing

report by Jewell indicates that out of all the nurses that graduate every year, only 50% make a
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successful transition into becoming successful professional. It is therefore projected that if the

situation is not supported by experimentation, research and implementation of mentorship

programs then in one millennium, the world would have a very high morbidity and mortality

rate.

As a comparison, while nurses that do not get mentorship programs have a low retention

rate of 50%, nurses that undergo peer-training have increased retention rate of over 90%, which

is a positive indication for the cure of nurse-shortage melee. Vergara reports that when some

hospitals effected the use of peer-mentorship programs in their facility module, the rate of stock

turnover has reduced from 50% in the previous years to18% in 2014 to 14% in 2015 and finally

to 4% percent in 2016. According to this report, 96 out of 100 nurses that attend mentorship

programs are able to make a successful transition from being graduates to successful nurses in

the healthcare industry.

Further, Verret agrees that there is evidence that new graduates massively benefit from

mentorship programs which includes even their competence. However, further attention should

be taken for individual problems since some problems can be specific to an individual nurse.

Therefore, mentors should spend also sometime mentoring novice nurses on a one-on-one basis

as a way of identifying personal difficulties. An effective mentorship program should produce

positive results in all spheres of a person’s life.

Conclusion

Medical training in school confer a lot of theoretical knowledge while the workplace

requires practical ability of individuals[ CITATION All17 \l 1033 ]. Therefore, novice nurses find it

difficult trying to fit into the workplace trends. Most of these nurses have registered their
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frustration due to workplace pressure that cause exhaustion and discouragements. This has led to

the current healthcare problem of shortage of nurses. To promote clinical competence and

building of self-confidence, mentorship programs have proven effective with accurate result

from various research. Mentorship programs have helped increase the rate of retention of novice

nurses and reduce the rate of turnover. Hospitals have always spend a lot of resources in trying to

deal with such kind of situation which increases the cost of healthcare delivery. Novice nurses’

professional competence increases after mentorship programs and the feeling of frustration

significantly reduced. Nonetheless, most hospital facilities have not implemented the practice of

peer-mentorship irrespective of understanding its immense benefits to a healthcare setup.

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References

Alligood, M. R. ( 2017). Nursing Theorists and Their Work. St. Louis, MO: Mosby.

Jewell, A. (2013). Supporting the Novice Nurse to Fly: A Literature Review. Nurse Education In

Practice, 323-327.

Schroyer, C. C., Zellers, R., & Abraham, S. (2016). Increasing Registered Nurse Retention

Using Mentors in Critical Care Services. Health Care Manager,.

Vergara, Y. J. (2017). Implementation of Mentorship Program to Increase Staff Satisfaction and

Retention in Critical Care. Nurse Leader, 207-2012.

Verret, G., & Lin, V. (2016). Easing the Transition: An Innovative Generational Approach to

Peer Mentoring for New Graduate Nurses. Journal of Pedriatic Medicine, 745-756.

Zhang, Y., & Qian, Y. (2016). The Effectiveness and Implementation of mentoring Program for

Newly Graduated Nurses: A Systematic Review. Nurse Education Today, 136-144.