Exploring mentorship programs and components in nursing academia: A qualitative study

A literature review of mentorship programs in academic nursing.

Charting a Professional Course: A Review of Mentorship in Medicine

Background: The delivery of nursing care based on available evidence and centered on the individuals who require it and has a positive impact on the quality of professional interventions, leading to health benefits for the population across all core domains of nursing practice, as well as contributing to the advancement of the profession. Objective: To analyze nurses' perspectives on the effects of their participation in evidence implementation programs in clinical nursing. Methods: In the Qualitative Descriptive Study, the study participants were nurses who took part in the "Safe Transition" project, a collaborative initiative involving three institutions: a nursing school, a hospital, and a network of primary healthcare institutions. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews that were analyzed by two researchers using content analysis techniques, with the support of the qualitative data analysis software. Results: From the content analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with 17 nurses involved in knowledge implementation projects in clinical practice, the following categories emerged: Cultivating a spirit of inquiry and an evidence-based practice culture; Critically appraising established practices and evidence-based recommendations; and Integrating evidence into clinical expertise to drive change, improve outcomes, and enhance the quality of care. Conclusions: Effective communication and structured opportunities for knowledge sharing emerged as central to the critical examination of clinical practice and to the development of professionals' competencies in evidence use. Evidence implementation was further motivated by professionals' recognition that it can generate tangible benefits for healthcare service users. Collectively, these findings inform recommendations for clinical practice, nursing education, and future nursing research.

Nursing Programs Could Sharpen LTC Focus

Mentoring programmes are commonplace and delivered in a range of different ways in the United Kingdom and North America. To better understand the type of programmes available and to inform future evaluations, we developed a typology of formal mentoring programmes for young people in secondary schools in the United Kingdom. Telephone interviews with 23 programme managers from purposively sampled mentoring organisations were conducted and analysed using thematic and framework analysis. The typology was consulted on with five experts in mentoring. The final typology differentiates mentoring programmes by three overarching categories: type of mentor (older student, school staff, adult volunteer, paid adult), programme setting (school, community, online) and programme aim. The findings suggest that although mentoring programmes are heterogeneous, it is possible to group programmes into ‘personal and developmental’ and ‘academic and employability’ mentoring programmes and to differentiate between 12 overall mentoring models. The typology helps understand what is being delivered and how, which is a necessary precursor to any evaluation of health, educational, relational and social outcomes.

Development of a typology of mentoring programmes for young people in secondary schools in the UK: a qualitative study

Research is a cornerstone of medical progress and a vital component to promote a country’s sustainable development by optimizing healthcare practices, policies, and delivery. Ethiopia has low research productivity and contributions to the international literature. Despite research importance in promoting evidence-based medicine and improving the quality of patient care, medical doctors in Ethiopia face significant challenges engaging in research activities. This study explored the barriers and facilitators to conducting research among medical doctors in public health facilities in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A qualitative descriptive study was conducted in Alert Comprehensive Specialized Hospital and General Jagama Kello Memorial Health Center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Fourteen in-depth interviews were conducted with doctors at different career stages, including general practitioners, specialists, and sub-specialists, with a comparable gender balance and different levels of research experience. Three key informant interviews with doctors in leadership roles at the institutes, including a physician-researcher, provided additional insights. Data collection adhered to a semi-structured interview guide. Interviews were transcribed, translated, and thematically analyzed using MAXQDA Version 24 and Microsoft Excel 2010 using Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis approach. Key barriers identified include high clinical workloads, staff shortages, financial constraints, insufficient research training, poor institutional support, low motivation/research interest, and bureaucratic obstacles within health facilities. Facilitators included effective mentorship programs, institutional recognition and incentives, visible impact of research on clinical care, and tailored practical research training mentorship. Participants emphasized the need for comprehensive research training, protected research time, and access to funding to alleviate barriers and enhance research productivity. Research participation among medical doctors in Ethiopia is influenced by interrelated factors at individual, interpersonal, institutional, and systemic levels, highlighting the need for a comprehensive, multi-level approach to strengthen research culture and productivity. Addressing the barriers to research requires a multifaceted approach involving capacity building and institutional support. Developing mentorship programs, providing financial incentives, and integrating comprehensive research training into medical curriculum may strengthen medical doctors’ research culture and productivity in Ethiopia.

To understand clinicians' motivations to engage in mentoring to support newly graduated nurses and midwives working in hospital settings. Nursing and midwifery literature has established the benefits of mentoring and challenges that affect the effectiveness of formal mentoring programmes. No studies have explored hospital nurses' and midwives' motivations to mentor in the absence of the obligatory status and associated rewards of institutionalised mentoring. A qualitative descriptive study with 35 nurses and midwives working in three public hospitals in the western, northern and northwestern parts of Uganda. Data were collected using semistructured interviews. Reflexive thematic analysis was applied to interpret the data. We have adhered to COREQ reporting guidelines. The study revealed three salient themes that capture nursing and midwifery professionals' mentoring perspectives. Participants expressed confidence in their inherent mentoring capacities and were often motivated by a desire to reciprocate prior mentoring experiences. Their mentoring approaches varied between self-focused and other-focused motivations, with some overlap in perspectives on hierarchical versus relational mentoring. Across the board, there was a strong consensus on the need of mentoring for individual clinicians, healthcare institutions and the broader profession. The study highlights five opportunities that can be harnessed to design future mentoring programmes. The findings delineate a complex interplay between self-centred and altruistic mentoring motivations, aligning with hierarchical or mutually beneficial mentoring paradigms. Nurse managers should tailor mentoring programmes to align with these intrinsic motivations, affirm the enduring need for mentoring, and leverage existing institutional resources to create both acceptable and efficient mentoring frameworks.

Who is sensitising whom? A participatory interview guide development as an awareness tool within a health care research project

BackgroundThe role of the school nurse is complex with many possible elements identified by previous research. The aim of this study is to understand perceptions of the role of the school nurse in order to support school nurses in the delivery of health education.MethodsThe study used an inductive, qualitative research design involving semi-structured interviews and focus groups. Participants were recruited from four NHS trusts across England and final sample size was thirty one school nurses. Three focus groups and two interviews took place in person, and three interviews were over the phone. Data was thematically analysed.ResultsSchool nurses described six main themes. Four themes directly related to the school nurse role: the main roles of a school nurse, school nurses' role in health education, prioritisation of workload and activities, and community work. A further two other themes related to the delivery of health education: the school nursing system and educational resources.ConclusionsThe role of the school nurse in England is very diverse and the school nurse role in health education is primarily to advise and support schools, rather than to directly deliver education. The study identified that tailored public health educational resources are needed to support school nurses.

Because of the increasing demand for nurses entering professional practice to have a baccalaureate degree, the pressure to have faculty members prepared at the graduate level is also mounting. Due to personal, economic, or organizational factors, faculty members may undertake graduate studies at the institutions where they teach. No research has been found regarding the implications of nursing faculty members becoming students in the same institution. Thus, this qualitative descriptive study was performed to understand the implications. Data were collected through semistructured interviews from 12 participants. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim for content analysis. The findings revealed that faculty members who became graduate students in their own institution had advantages that facilitated their learning. However, they received mixed messages about their identity as both a student and a faculty member. Implications for this dual identity on the learning environment are discussed.

The purpose of this methodology paper is to describe an approach to qualitative design known as qualitative descriptive that is well suited to junior health sciences researchers because it can be used with a variety of theoretical approaches, sampling techniques, and data collection strategies. It is often difficult for junior qualitative researchers to pull together the tools and resources they need to embark on a high-quality qualitative research study and to manage the volumes of data they collect during qualitative studies. This paper seeks to pull together much needed resources and provide an overview of methods. A step-by-step guide to planning a qualitative descriptive study and analyzing the data is provided, utilizing exemplars from the authors' research. This paper presents steps to conducting a qualitative descriptive study under the following headings: describing the qualitative descriptive approach, designing a qualitative descriptive study, steps to data analysis, and ensuring rigor of findings. The qualitative descriptive approach results in a summary in everyday, factual language that facilitates understanding of a selected phenomenon across disciplines of health science researchers.

BackgroundSurviving children born at 23 gestational weeks are a growing population. As many of these children face developmental challenges during childhood and adolescence, more knowledge is needed about the everyday life of this group. The parental perspective is important, as developmental problems often pose a challenge for the parents. The aim of this qualitative study was to explore mothers’ experiences of parenting children born at 23 gestational weeks and of the children’s everyday lives.MethodsThis was a qualitative descriptive study conducted with mothers of children born at 23 weeks of gestation. These purposively sampled eight mothers were interviewed using a semi-structured interview. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the interviews.ResultsSeven themes were formed on the basis of the interview data and they are presented in three dimensions: 1) the child seen from maternal perspective included themes ‘emphasizing strengths in the midst of challenges’, ‘relations with peers and siblings’, and ‘emotional well-being and active life’; 2) the parenting experience included themes ‘intensive mothering’ and ‘gratitude’; 3) the support included themes ‘support from the social network’ and ‘support from society’.ConclusionsThe mothers described how the lives of their children were active and rich. The mothers were dedicated to motherhood and they also expressed feelings of gratitude. Mothers received support from social networks and from society. This qualitative study provided an important complementary perspective to the discussion on extremely premature children’s quality of life. It also highlighted the importance of parental perspectives in assessing neonatal care and its outcomes.

BackgroundPain problems are a rapidly growing health problem found among both children and adolescent, and about 15–30% have reported chronic pain problems. School nurses in Norway meet adolescents with various ailments, including pain. Yet research on how school nurses perceive the pain experienced by adolescents is limited. The aim of the present study was to explore how school nurses explain and experience the everyday pain of adolescents.MethodA qualitative study with an explorative design comprising five focus group interviews. Each group consisted of three to five school nurses. Seventeen female school nurses in five junior high schools in Norway, age range 29–65 years participated. To cover the issues a semi structured interview guide was used. The transcribed text was analysed with qualitative content analysis.ResultsThe experience of school nurses with adolescents’ pain in everyday life is mainly that pain is a social, physical, and psychological phenomenon. School nurses experienced that everyday pain is reflecting: 1) high expectations, 2) difficult relationships and traumatic experiences and 3) an unhealthy lifestyle. School nurses have ambivalent attitudes to medicalisation of pain.ConclusionDespite of a biopsychosocial understanding of pain, the school nurses maintained referral practice of medical examinations, with the results that many adolescents became shuttlecocks in the health system. Although the school nurses´ were sceptical of the tendency towards medicalization in society, it appears that they actually help maintain this tendency.

This qualitative study used the nursing grounding theory to describe parents' experiences working with school nurses to elevate their child’s healthcare. Seventeen interviews were conducted with parents/primary caregivers (P/PCG) who had children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; ages six to ten). Through centering parents’ voices, the investigators were able to identify gaps in P/CG understanding of their school nurses’ roles through thematic analyses. We found that P/CG lacked the understanding of school nurses' roles and how school nurses could aid their child’s healthcare. The oversight of school nurses contributed to miscommunication, which constrained the relationship between the parent and the school nurse. These findings provide insight into the importance of enhancing communication between the parents of children with ASD and school nurses and was the catalyst to why this article was written. When healthcare professionals provide clarity and expertise to parents as to their respective roles, incorporate perspective-taking, and tailor their approaches based on their concerns, it may enhance parents’ experiences with their school nurses. In addition, school nurses should consider various routes of engaging parents so they have a deeper understanding of their responsibilities in enhancing the healthcare of children with ASD.