Student nurses’ experiences participating in a peer mentoring program in clinical placement studies: A metasynthesis

The aim of this metasynthesis was to identify, analyze and synthesize the qualitative findings from original research studies addressing student nurses’ experiences with a peer mentoring program in their clinical placements. Students’ positive experiences from clinical placement studies, are often associated with quality of clinical mentoring and learning environments. However, nurse mentors struggle to find sufficient time for mentoring student nurses. Establishing a peer mentoring program, may provide additional mentoring and strengthen clinical placement as learning environment. A peer mentoring program entails, that senior student nurses at one level act as a supportive mentor and serve as role models for fellow novice student nurses at a lower level. A flexible descriptive design was applied for this metasynthesis. By using the same search strategy, systematic searches were made in the following electronic databases: CINAHL, MEDLINE OVID, Embase, ERIC, Scopus, Oria and SveMed+ . Ten articles met the eligibility criteria, reporting findings from altogether 203 student mentors and 446 student mentees. Extracted information (data) from the articles were analyzed in lines with Graneheim & Lundmans’ five phases of thematic analysis of data. The analysis resulted in two overarching themes characterizing students’ experiences. Student mentors experienced that participating in peer mentoring had been Strengthening the road to becoming a professional nurse. Student mentees experienced that participating in peer mentoring had been Strengthening the studying and learner role in clinical placement. The themes covering student mentors experience were: Understanding and integrating nursing competence; Realizing the need to be mentored and supported as mentors; Understanding the content and complexity of clinical mentoring. The themes covering student mentees experience were: Reaching further for clinical competence and self-confidence; Taking advantage of mentoring and learning situations; Understanding the importance of learning conditions and their own learning responsibility. All themes were further characterized with sub-themes. The findings from this metasynthesis are in general positive for both student mentors and mentees and both student groups experienced to benefit from participating in the peer mentoring program.