Evaluation of a mentorship program for new and more-experienced nursing faculty

Abstract

Objective: Evaluation of a nursing faculty mentorship program available to every faculty member regardless of seniority.

Methods: Design: The faculty mentorship program was developed and implemented in a university-affiliated nursing department in Montreal in 2018. Mentors and mentees evaluated the program using self-reported surveys one-year post-implementation. The surveys addressed three main themes: (a) determining goals of the mentoring partnership; (b) overall level of satisfaction with the program; and (c) characteristics of each dyad’s mentoring agreement (strategies used to communicate, where the dyads met, etc.). Method: Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted.

Results: A total of 19 mentees and 15 mentors completed the survey. The program was judged to be a worthwhile use of time by 89% of mentees and 93% of mentors. Even though specific mentoring needs differed according to seniority level, the program was shown to be beneficial to both less-experienced and more-experienced faculty. The main barriers to mentorship that were identified were related to timing, scheduling and time commitment issues. Clinical relevance: A successful mentorship program aimed at fostering relationships between nursing faculty members, regardless of seniority, has the potential to improve the productivity of a healthy workplace including the quality of both teaching and research.

Conclusions: The mentorship program proposed herein was found to be useful and effective, as well as being beneficial as much for younger as for more experienced faculty members.