Award Date

12-1-2014

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Nursing

First Committee Member

Alona D. Angosta

Second Committee Member

Tish Smyer

Third Committee Member

Jennifer Kawi

Fourth Committee Member

Jay J. Shen

Number of Pages

170

Abstract

Family nurse practitioners (FNPs) are vital primary care providers who are responding to increased primary health care needs in the United States. Organizational commitment is reflective of workplace relationships that foster professional development, innovation, and outcome achievement. An organizationally committed FNP workforce is essential to achieving primary health care goals.

Mentorship has been proposed as a strategy to foster FNP organizational commitment. Mentoring has been characterized as a teaching-learning relationship. The mentor can serve as a guide to foster graduate FNP practitioner transition into primary care practice. Types of mentoring relationships occur in formal workplace settings or develop as informal friendship-based relationships. Mentoring career functions promote protégé confidence and competency. Mentoring psychosocial functions have provided emotional support for nursing role development. Mentoring quality is associated with relationship satisfaction and goal achievement. There is a current research gap concerning mentoring relationships' impact on FNP organizational commitment during the first year of primary care practice. The purpose of this study was to examine factors of FNP mentoring relationships (presence, types, functions, and quality) and their impact on organizational commitment.

A national cross-sectional survey was conducted with postal mail and online survey methods in spring 2014. A sample of 1,500 FNPs, members of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, was invited to respond to the survey concerning mentoring and organizational commitment during their first year of primary care practice. The study utilized four questionnaires: (a) the FNP Demographic Survey, (b) the Three-Component Model Employee Commitment Survey, (c) the Quality of Mentoring Relationship scale, and (d) the Mentoring Functions Questionnaire. Mentoring presence, functions, types, and quality of the relationships' impact on FNP organizational commitment were analyzed by bivariate and multiple regression and MANOVA.

There was a 26.9 % usable response rate from the 1,500 FNP sample. Four hundred and three survey responses met the study criteria and were used in the analysis. Non-mentored FNPs comprised 44% of the respondents. During the first year of primary care practice, 55% of the FNPs had mentoring relationships; 23% of the mentorships were comprised of informal relationships, 21% were a combination of formal and informal relationships, and 11% were solely formal relationships.

Mentored FNPs were significantly more affectively (emotionally) committed to the workplace than non-mentored FNPs. All mentoring career and psychosocial functions had a significant impact on affective and normative FNP organizational commitment. Additionally, mentoring career function was a significant individual predictor of affective FNP organizational commitment. Mentoring relationship quality had a significant impact on FNP affective and normative organizational commitment. This research study has provided a foundation for mentoring strategy development that will promote FNP organizational commitment in primary care settings.

Keywords

Career development; Family medicine; Family nurse practitioners; Mentoring; Mentoring in nursing; Nurse practitioners; Organizational commitment; Primary care (Medicine)

Disciplines

Family Practice Nursing | Health and Medical Administration | Nursing

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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