Perceived benefits and attitude of undergraduate nursing students towards the mentoring programme

Abstract

Objective

The purpose of this study was to identify the nurse's overall experience with a mentoring programme and the study specifically seeks to determine the attitudes and perceived benefits of students in different semesters regarding the mentoring programme.

Method

The research design was quantitative. Face-to-face survey method based on a given questionnaire was conducted with all the targeted respondents. The methodology used was a non-experimental descriptive research design. Total of 146 respondents out of 243 populations were selected using a stratified random sampling strategy to determine the research sample to give equal opportunity.

Results

Findings of hypotheses test using one-way ANOVA indicated that there is a significant difference in attitudes towards the mentoring programme and perceived benefits between different groups of nursing at Training Institute Ministry of Health (Nursing) Sandakan.

Conclusion

In general, the mentoring programme had a positive impact. However, the level of attitude and perceived benefit is different among students in different semesters. The overall mean result is good and reflecting nursing students are fairly benefited from the mentoring programme.

Introduction

Nursing in Malaysia has become a sensational topic of the politicians, public and health workers, at that time.^1–3 Issues raised are the competency of new graduates to provide quality safe care to patients and the competency of nurses to provide the proper health care services to the community.⁴ A study done by Fuad Fuad et al.,⁵ the Malaysian Ministry of Health showed that 80% of matrons and nursing sisters were doing more administrative work and had neglected their main role of supervising and teaching the trainee nurses. The Health Minister mentioned that starting in the year 2016, matrons and nursing sisters were given the task to be mentors to trainees’ nurses and to assess their performance before they could register as qualified nurse with the Nursing Board. It becomes a challenge of the nursing management to find solutions for this weakness addressed by the politicians and the public.^6,7 The mentorship idea has been in the Malaysian nursing education system for many years but unfortunately, the mentorship programme was not well structured and emphasized.

The concept of mentoring several authors have proposed typologies differentiating “traditional” or one-on-one, hierarchical mentoring from other supportive workplace relationships, such as peer mentoring and developmental networks.⁸ Mentoring relationships is two types formal and informal, there are distinct differences between formal and informal mentoring relationships that may impact the mentor's functions and the career outcomes of the relationship.⁹ Informal mentoring relationships develop based on mutual identification and the fulfilment of career needs. It also develops based on perceived competence and interpersonal comfort.^5,10 In contrast, members of formal mentoring relationships are typically assigned to one another by a programme coordinator based on application forms submitted by the potential mentor and protege.¹¹

Mentorship is considered as essential to maintain high-quality educational programmes. Despite the value of mentorship is well established in other disciplines, the extant state of the evidence for mentorship in nursing is not well established. There is a lack of study about the current state of mentorship and facilitators for implementing mentorship programmes in Malaysian nursing schools.

A literature search yielded few studies that addressed nursing perceived benefit and attitudes relate to defined ideas, and stereotypes towards groups of people. The outcomes of many studies on mentoring showed in western countries may not be directly generalized to developing countries since their economic and socio-cultural situation are different.^12,13 The current study has prominent that attitudes and perceived benefit that are culturally based maybe vital to mentoring programme among nurses. Therefore, it is hypothesis that there is a positive association between mentoring, attitude and perceived benefit.

Methods

The study is based on quantitative methods. A quantitative method is appropriate when a researcher intends to analyze numerical data and generalize the results to a larger population.^14–16 This is a quantitative cross-sectional research design. This research employs a survey questionnaire to evaluate the mentoring as an academic support for nursing students in Training Institute Ministry of Health (Nursing) Sandakan by assessing the perception of nursing students on mentoring, their attitudes towards the mentoring programme and the perceived benefits of the mentoring programme Training Institute Ministry of Health (Nursing) Sandakan implemented since 01 October 2014.

Population

The population is the nursing students of Training Institute Ministry of Health (Nursing) Sandakan enrolled in the Diploma; the population is 243 people (registration record for student).

Sample

The sample size was determined by stratified random sampling. Sample chosen for this study was 146 nursing students were chosen to participate in this study. A stratified random sampling method was used to determine the research sample to reduce bias and to ensure it is representative of the populations of 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Results

As shown in Table 1, score mean for July 2016 (Semester 5) shows lowest score mean compare to other group of Diploma nursing students. One-way ANOVA test and post hoc test shows that January 2017 (Semester 4) have the highest score attitude on mentoring programme as to compare with other group of students and followed by group July 2017 (Semester 3) nursing students. The result indicated that there is significant difference in attitude on mentoring programme based on groups of nursing students. As a result, the first hypothesis is accepted by this study that there is a significant difference in attitude of the mentoring programme between different groups of nursing students.

Table 1.

One-way ANOVA analysis: overall attitude of students towards the mentoring scheme.

	Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F*	Sig.
Between groups	8.556	5	1.71	9.529	0.000
Within groups	25.142	140	0.180

Note: df, degrees of freedom, F test.

*

F value significant at 0.05.

As shown in Table 2, one-way ANOVA test result illustrated value F (df = 5, 140, P < 0.05) = 12.66. Significance value is 0.000. P values less than 0.05 or 5%. This means there is a significant difference in perceived benefits on mentoring programme between groups of nursing students at Training Institute Ministry of Health (Nursing) Sandakan. Post hoc multiple comparisons show that there is a significant difference in perceived benefits on mentoring programme between groups of nursing students. Score mean for July 2016 (Semester 5) shows smaller score mean compare to group of Diploma nursing students. One-way ANOVA test and post hoc test show that July 2016 (Semester 5) have the lowest score perceived benefits on mentoring programme as to compare with other group of students. Meanwhile the group January 2018 (Semester 2) students scored the highest score mean of perceived benefits on mentoring programme and followed by group January 2017 (Semester 4) nursing students. Student nurse group July 2016 (Semester 5) have the lowest score perceived benefits on mentoring programme as to compare with other group of students. Therefore, there is a significant difference in perceived benefit on mentoring programme based on groups of nursing students.

Table 2.

One-way ANOVA analysis: overall perceived benefit of students towards the mentoring scheme.

	Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F*	Sig.
Between groups	6.283	5	1.257	12.657	0.000
Within groups	13.898	140	0.099
Total	20.181	145

Note: df, degrees of freedom, F test.

*

F value significant at 0.05.

Discussion

Mentoring is widely recognized as an important aspect of medical training and future career success.¹⁷ Analysis of our survey showed that the perceived benefits were modestly positive among all participant. The result also showed that nurses believed that mentoring was beneficial or critical to their training. Our result is in consist with Yamada et al.¹⁸ studies, they indicated that radiologist/residents highly value the importance of mentoring and that a formalized mentoring programme was associated with modestly positive benefits during residency training. Furthermore, several studies have supported the importance of mentorship in health/training, with evidence that shows benefits in career guidance, research, job satisfaction, and personal development.^19,20 Although the result indicated perceived benefit is positively associated with nurses mentoring, there is a significant difference in perceived benefits on mentoring programme between groups of nursing students.

The nursing students group January 2018 (Semester 2) scored the highest score mean of perceived benefits on mentoring programme because this group of students posted at Duchess of Kent Sandakan within the college compound. Their community posting is within Sandakan areas and they are easily reachable by mentors. Meanwhile, the nursing students’ group from January 2017 (Semester 4) and student nurse group of July 2016 (Semester 5) with lowest score perceived benefits on mentoring, are mostly posted to Lahad Datu and Tawau Hospital which are located far from the main training hospital in Sandakan. Most of the clinical areas are in the community clinics and district hospitals located at districts or villages. Mentors may not be able to reach them very often and most mentors meet up with their mentees while they are in class or in the nearby hospital or contacted mentees via telephone. Their community posting is within Sandakan areas and they are easily reachable by mentors. This study's finding is consistent with Huybrecht et al.²¹ that found that students whose mentors spent more time with their mentees claimed that they were benefited from the mentoring likewise those mentors who absented significantly spent less time in education related activities and their students did not benefited much from the mentorship.

The result of this study is in line/with Carr et al.^22,23 studies they asserted that that the attitude of students or mentees plays an important role mentoring programme and in learning engagement. Thus, the study hypothesis, indicating the effectiveness of the mentorship programme for nurses the results of the existing study are In line with the results achieved in various studies such as.²⁴ There is a significant difference in attitude of the mentoring programme between different groups of nursing students. This results is in line with study of mentoring programme.^25,26 White et al.²⁷ asserted that mentorship-based instruction” is also effective on continuous education and nurses students’ instruction in Malaysia, as well.²⁸ Results of this study indicated that to carry out the nurse educators’ extent role as mentor or guidance facilitator it is very important to increase one's knowledge, skills and have a good attitude.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.