Mentors in Professional Nursing Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Mentors in Professional Nursing - Research Paper Example Mentorship extends over a period of time, within which reciprocal sharing, learning, and development take place in an environment formed around respect and collegiality (Mariani, 2012). Further, Mariani (2012) emphasizes that reinforcing mentoring relationships within the nursing profession is essential in order to ensure that crucial facets of the vocation are retained, particularly in the present day healthcare environment. Moreover, an effective nurse mentor relationship is important for the upcoming generation of nurses. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how mentors support the nursing profession, the required characteristics of a mentor, and components of an effective mentor program. How Mentoring Supports the Nursing Profession Today, training, education and administration within the nursing profession is required to support and provide fundamental solutions that are directed toward the existing and progressively waning decline in nursing professionals’ collegialit y, self-confidence, and support. Indeed, the consequential damaging effects are realized in declining staff performance, and in deficient patient care outcomes. Additionally, the rapidly transforming health care environment requires that actions be taken to reinforce and inspire new and experienced nurses so as to retain competent nursing staff. Consequently, mentorship offers a unique opportunity for newer nurses to cultivate durable relationships with experienced nurses that are beneficial to the growth of both individuals and contributes to the retention of nurses within the organization and the profession. As noted earlier, mentors offer information, support and professional advice to novice nurses over an extended period of time. As such, both the mentor and mentee devote a substantial amount in the mentoring relationship emotionally, thus enabling self-directed growth and learning. To this end, mentorship provides many benefits to the nursing profession. First, mentoring helps decreases or alleviates stress and anxiety among nursing professional which impacts burnout rates. In recent years, professional nursing has been considered as an extremely stressful occupation owing to the increasing acuity of patients, declining staffing ratios, and time pressures arising from increasing productivity and performance requirements in healthcare facilities. In a research conducted at two tertiary care hospitals in New Delhi, Bhatia, Kishore, Anand, and Jiloha (2010) reported substantial job stress in approximately 87.4% of the eighty seven staff nurse respondents. According to the study, â€Å"time pressure† was identified as the top placed stressor (Bhatia, Kishore, Anand, & Jiloha, 2010). In another study, Duvall and Andrews (2010) surveyed the literature to establish why staff nurses left the bedside in connection to the nursing shortage and increased turnover rates. The study revealed a variety of reasons including management issues, job stress, job desig n, physical demands, and the inability to develop new nurses (Duvall & Andrews, 2010, p. 309). Furthermore, job stress has been linked to poor job satisfaction (Hassell, Archbold, & Stichman, 2011), undesirable physical and mental health outcomes (Nash, 2010), and ultimately to