Mentorship Education for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses.

Abstract

Background: Mentorship is a vital part of the nursing profession. The evidence suggests that competent mentors aid in facilitating role transitions, improving job satisfaction, enhancing patient care, and decreasing nursing turnover. Advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) have the skills and knowledge to provide safe, high-quality, patient-centered care; however, they may be lacking in mentorship abilities. Objective: Currently, there is no formal mentorship training in the organization, which may cause variability in the mentoring of new staff. The focus of this project was to create a staff educational intervention to improve the mentoring competency of surgical APRNs. The knowledge gap, lack of mentoring education given to APRNs acting as mentors to novice practitioners, was noted, and this project identified a staff educational intervention on mentorship training that was developed and implemented. Methods: The project practice-focused question asked if a formal APRN mentorship training program geared toward the six elements of mentoring (as measured by the Mentoring Competency Assessment [MCA]) increased the mentoring competency of APRNs serving in a mentorship role. Benner's theory guided the planning and development of this project, while the MCA was used for the self-reflection survey. Following a pretest survey, participants experienced an educational intervention geared toward mentoring and mentoring competencies. Formal APRN mentorship training program with an educational intervention that addressed the six domains of mentoring competency geared toward increasing the mentoring competency of APRNs who serve in a mentorship role. Results: A total of 18 surgical APRNs (N = 18) with more than 2 years of experience participated in the staff educational intervention. There was a statistically significant difference in six of the 26 individual items and in the overall pretest mean scores and the posttest mean scores (z = -3.41, p < .01), indicating that the APRN mentorship training increased the mentoring competency of the APRNs. Conclusion: The results of this quality improvement project demonstrated how an educational intervention geared toward mentoring competencies can increase the knowledge among a group of APRNs. Educating APRNs in mentorship competencies may enhance mentorship abilities and result in positive patient and organizational outcomes. Implications for Nursing: Educating APRNs in mentorship competencies may enhance mentorship abilities and result in positive patient and organizational outcomes.