Abstract:

Background: Academic staff shortages exist in training institutions within the developed and developing world. Mentoring is thought to enhance teachers’ competencies, strengthen social abilities, and promote learning and career development; however, not much is known about mentoring in developing countries and its impact on nursing academia. The aim of this literature review was to explore existing evidence on the impact of mentoring on nurse and midwifery teaching competencies and students’ learning and social abilities, and the pre-requisites for establishing an effective mentoring program.

Methodology: A comprehensive literature search was performed using HINARI, PubMed, SAGE, WILEY, Science direct, Google scholar, and Google search. Hand searching was too done through bibliographies to identify related articles. Results were screened to select studies that reported benefits and challenges of mentoring to nurse and midwifery educators, student nurses and midwives, and successful mentoring programs. After screening, a total of 15 articles met the inclusion criteria and were reviewed and analysed.

Results: Senior faculty mentoring junior faculty provides or enhances accomplishments of some nurse educator core competencies, provides opportunities to develop teaching knowledge base, and promotes exposure to required resources for growth in the teaching career. It further stimulates personal and social growth. Mentored student nurses and midwives experience reduced anxiety, and mentoring provides a supportive learning environment and increased self-awareness of one’s own values and beliefs, confidence, maturity and responsibility. Lack of time, dual responsibility, heavy workload, personality, and attitude may negatively impact the mentoring process. An effective mentoring program requires a relevant mentoring model and clear definitions of its context, structure, and goals.

Conclusion: Mentoring has the potential to strengthen teaching competencies as well as students’ learning and professional growth.

Keywords: Effective Mentoring program, Impact of mentoring, Midwifery educators, Nurse Educators, nursing education, social abilities, student midwives, student nurses, teaching competencies. 

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