The effect of mentoring experience on career development: The example of operating room nursing

The study was designed to explore the importance of effective mentoring in career development of operating room nurses. The study also aimed to answer the questions such as, what are the benefits of effective mentoring, what are qualifications a mentor should have, how the mentoring process can be best managed and how existing practices can be improved. The study was carried out with nurses with at least one year of experience working in the operating rooms of Dışkapı Yıldırım Beyazıt Training and Research Hospital, Gazi University Hospital, Çubuk State Hospital and Medicana Ankara Hospital which are located in Ankara. In the study, exploratory sequential design, which is one of the mixed methods in which qualitative and quantitative methods are evaluated together, was employed. In the study, both semi-structured interview form and questionnaire form were used to collect data. The interviews were conducted between July-September 2022 and the surveys were conducted between October- November 2022 by the researcher. The interview data were tested with the thematic analysis method and the survey data were tested with path analysis by applying structural equation modelling. In the qualitative part of the study, 35 people were interviewed and in the quantitative part, 87 people were surveyed. According to the study results, the most critical issues related to mentoring in operating room nursing are; The effect of mentoring, the qualifications that the mentor should have and the operating room adaptation process. According to the interviews mentoring positively affects job skills development, professional self-efficacy and job engagement in operating room nursing. The qualifications to be found in the operating room nurse mentor; are to be self-sacrificing and tolerant, to be patient, to have strong communication skills, to focus on practice, to be versatile and to adhere to professional ethics. The findings also show that the biggest mentoring barrier is the time constraint. The results of the Structural Equation Modeling analysis significantly supported the findings of the qualitative study. According to the results of structural equation modelling and path analysis; effective mentoring has a statistically significant and positive effect on job skills development, professional self-efficacy and work commitment of operating room nurses. Similarly, it has been found that job skills have a statistically significant and positive effect on professional self-efficacy, and work skills have a mediating effect on the relationship between effective mentoring and professional self-efficacy. It was concluded that effective mentoring affects job engagement through job skills development and professional self- efficacy. As a result of the study, it is recommended to develop mentoring programs in order to ensure that each nurse who starts the operating room has adequate access to the mentor and allocates sufficient time and that a mentor is selected from among those who have the qualifications required for mentoring in operating rooms.