Empowering nursing preceptors to mentoring undergraduate senior students in acute care settings

Nurse preceptors play an important role in the transition of nursing students from classroom to clinical practice not only in the United States but also internationally. However, many preceptors feel a lack of confidence in their role as mentors to nursing students rather than experienced nurses because of inadequate preparation or formal training. A study looking at the educational needs of nurse preceptors would be invaluable to academic educators because they choose strategies and develop content for a handbook to serve as a quick reference. Thus, the mentorship experience for preceptors would be enhanced by incorporating the needs and preferences of the preceptors into their training and resource materials. The purposes of this study were to identify the needs of the nurses who precept students rather than nurses who mentor other nurses and to evaluate if the current handbook was a useful reference for preceptors during a practicum in acute care settings.

A multiprocedural mixed method study was used. Data were collected through a questionnaire that was adapted with the permission of the author. Descriptive statistics and a chi-square test were used to compare differences in the means. The preceptorship handbook helped preceptors mentor undergraduate senior nursing students. In addition, the currently developed preceptorship handbook was recognized as a useful reference in mentoring nursing students by 100% of the participants.