Date of Conferral

2020

Degree

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

School

Nursing

Advisor

Corinne Wheeler

Abstract

The retention of new nurses remains a challenge for most healthcare organizations. Approximately 75% of newly licensed registered nurses (NLRNs) resign their positions within the first year of employment due to transition shock from the academic setting to the practicum setting. Other reasons for resignation include lack of confidence, poor critical thinking skills, and feeling overwhelmed to provide quality patient care. This loss of retention among NLRNs poses a significant threat to the delivery of quality and safe patient care. Nurses who assume the role of mentor to newly licensed nurses face many barriers to fulfilling their role effectively, including lack of proper training or skills to perform this role, lack of time, and competing demands of being a mentor and providing patient care. Therefore, the purpose of this doctoral project was to develop an evidence-based staff education curriculum on mentoring for professional staff nurses in an acute care hospital in a southeastern state. The goal of the staff education project was to prepare nurses as mentors to assist the NLRN’s transition into practice. Patricia Benner’s theoretical model “from novice to expert” was the framework used in this project. Sources of evidence included the collection of data obtained from peer-reviewed articles in the Cumulative Index to Nursing Allied Health Literature database, American Association of Colleges of Nursing, and Patricia Benner’s novice to expert framework. This project promotes social change by offering a quality, evidence-based mentorship program to benefit all stakeholders of the organization through its implications for nursing practice.

Included in

Nursing Commons

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