Nurse Graduates – the influence of mentorship on the development of professional values and self-efficacy within a Nurse Navigator program during the graduate year.

Nurse Graduates – the influence of mentorship on the development of professional values and self-efficacy within a Nurse Navigator program during the graduate year.

Background: The nursing and midwifery professions are facing a crisis of staffing shortages. Healthcare provision requires advanced practice from nurses and graduates that are prepared clinically to engage, think and respond to patient’s needs. Understanding the development of critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills is paramount. The underpinning cognitive processes needed in contemporary nursing and midwifery practice is thought to be underpinned by self-efficacy and a broad understanding of professional values. The provision of strong mentorship guided by skilled clinicians can provide a secure base to develop a nurse from novice to expert. Strategies to ensure newly graduated nurses improve professionalism and develop self-efficacy are essential for the registered nurse workforce and consumer engagement.
Methods: A quasi-experimental three group (two group intervention and one group control group) pre-test post-test design was chosen to investigate the research questions. Four groups of newly employed graduate nurses were invited to participate upon commencement of their graduate program. Data was collected using two questionnaires including the Nurses Professional Values - Revised (NSPV-R) tool that measured professional values and the Nursing Profession Self-Efficacy (NPSES) tool to test self-efficacy in each cohort of graduate nurses.
Results: Both groups had high total NSPV-R and NPSES scores on pre-test and posttest 12 months after the survey time points. It was difficult to see an increase when all three groups had high scores pre-test and no statistically significant difference between the groups was noted. Both newly graduated registered nurses support programs demonstrated high caring, activism, trust, professional and justice scores as measured by the Nurses Professional Values Scale (NSPV-R). Both groups of graduate nurses showed high caring and professional situation scores using the NPSES.
Discussion/Conclusions: It is suggestive that mentorship from the skilled clinical nurse navigators or traditional mentorship support programs could have a positive impact on the professionalism and self-efficacy of the developing new graduates. In evaluating the escalating need of newly qualified nurses to succeed and transition to speciality and advanced practice, the addition of support from an experienced mentor may have positive effects on the self-efficacy and professionalism of graduate nurses in clinical settings.