Building Research Competence in Nursing Through Mentoring

Abstract

Purpose: To explore how mentoring can be used to build research competence in nursing in various professional and geographic settings. Organizing construct: The traditional concept of mentoring in interdisciplinary health professions and its application to nursing research. Methods: Literature review of MEDLINE and CINAHL databases 1990–2001 and personal reflections on mentoring and mentored experiences. Findings: Mentoring relationship models identified include: traditional mentor and protégé, team, peer, inclusive, and mentoring forward. E‐mentoring strategies facilitate interactions for long‐distance relationships. Discrete projects, multiple mentor sources, and mutually beneficial peer relationships can enable mentoring across one's career. Psychosocial dimensions of mentoring support creative work. When scholarly productivity with funded research is the desired outcome, intense involvement of a protégé with an expert researcher is essential. Conclusion: Choices among mentoring models can be made in accordance with resources, priorities, and objectives congruent with a given nursing setting and time, but optimum scholarly productivity requires experts and sustained support.