Utilization and Meaningfulness of National Association of Neonatal Nurse Practitioners' Mentoring Toolkit Activities

Mentoring is a process in which a more skilled or experienced person builds a supportive relationship with a less experienced person to promote the latter's professional development. The National Association of Neonatal Nurse Practitioners (NANNP) supports the establishment of formalized mentoring programs for neonatal nurse practitioners (NNPs) and published a mentoring toolkit in 2017. Completing suggested activities outlined in the toolkit promotes the incorporation of evidence-based practice into the NNP professional role.

This quality improvement project's purpose was to measure utilization and meaningfulness of NANNP mentoring toolkit activities.

A convenience sample of 21 nurse practitioners was paired in 2 mentoring cohorts. Dyads were encouraged to meet monthly to complete NANNP mentoring toolkit activities in the context of a formalized mentoring program. Monthly data were collected to evaluate use and meaningfulness of the toolkit activities. Quantitative data included frequency and length of mentoring meetings, activities completed, and ratings of meaningfulness on a Likert-type scale.

Six of the 9 (67%) NANNP mentoring activities completed by the 2 cohorts were rated as "meaningful" or "very meaningful" by participants.

Activities from the NANNP mentoring toolkit provide structure to mentoring relationship development. Recognizing the challenge to recruit and retain NNPs, organizations are encouraged to explore creative solutions to develop and support formalized mentoring programs. Further research is warranted to validate use of NANNP toolkit activities in the establishment and evaluation of a formalized mentoring program in various neonatal intensive care unit settings.