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Nursing Students and Peer Mentoring in a Nursing College: Perceived Benefits and Supports

BM Dube, MN Omari and A Harerimana

Peer mentoring in nursing is an interactive process that involves peer mentees and mentors together with college lecturers. Students continued to perceive mentorship not just as a method of solving academic problems, but also as a tool for the achievement of the individual student educational goals. This study aimed at evaluating the perception of nursing students with regards to peer mentoring in one of the selected college of nursing campus in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. A non-experimental, exploratory-descriptive quantitative research design was used in this study. Sixty nursing students from a four-year comprehensive basic diploma-nursing programme were recruited for the study using randomly selected 24 mentors and 36 mentees who consented to participate in the study. The findings revealed that peer mentoring in nursing is yet to attain a stage whereby an experienced student nurse provides support and guidance to another student nurse who is experiencing academic or personal difficulties. The main source of mentorship information to students is college staff and students themselves. The findings in this study indicated that the students are aware of the concept and benefits of peer mentoring. Peer mentors are also aware that they need support from college lecturers on how to implement the peer mentoring effectively. Majority of students knew about peer mentoring through the college staff and they reviled that mentors support should come from the mentoring coordinators and the central mentoring office. This study suggests that there is the need to introduce a Peer mentoring central committee in order to support and train mentors who are capable and willing to help other students in their learning problems.