Building an effective mentoring program to increase the self-confidence of nursing students

In today's dynamic and rapidly changing health care environment, nurses are challenged daily to increase competence, enhance productivity and raise the quality of care and services. Nursing is a complex profession. Its various processes and theoretical formulations must be broadened by skilled professionals who are able to work independently and make significant contributions to the ongoing development of the profession. Transitions are generally recognized as complex processes and transitioning from one role to another is recognized as a difficult and stressful process that is experienced by individuals and groups alike. Thus, in an attempt to address the issue of their graduates' role transition from nursing student to professional practitioner, in 2002 the Department of Nursing faculty at HungKuang Institute of Technology instituted a series of four additional leadership courses. The four courses, Values in Leadership, Decision Making, Information and Communication, and Vision and Leadership, were designed to provide the additional learning experiences deemed necessary to enable the successful transition into the professional practice role.; The purpose of this study was to evaluate these four leadership courses offered at HungKuang Institute of Technology to determine the effect of the mentoring experience between junior and senior nursing students and the impact on senior students' self-confidence. In order to achieve this purpose two questions were addressed: (1) Does becoming a mentor to junior nursing students affect and/or increase the self-confidence of senior nursing students? (2) What impact will these four courses have on the senior nursing student's level of self-confidence?; The findings of this study describe the effect of the four courses, mentoring skills assessment and self-confidence evaluation by determining the relationship between the mentoring program and self-confidence established by calculating the t-tests and subsequent p values and by analyzing the quantitative and qualitative data provided by the mentors and protégés. The analysis of the evaluative data from the four leadership courses and the mentoring experience delineated that they produced a positive effect in the senior nursing students (mentors) and their self-confidence.; The findings of this study also identified some of the available strategies that would enable nurses to enhance their self-confidence and mentoring skills. If the nursing faculty integrate the mentoring experience and, at least, the content of the four leadership courses into their formal curriculum, the teaching learning process provided for the nursing students would be enhanced and they would be prepared to be more self-confident novice nurses in the employment setting.