Developing and Testing the Negative Mentoring Experience Questionnaire (NMEQ) for Nurses

Abstract

Many nurse managers actively developed mentoring programs to shorten the acclimation period of new nurses in hospitals. The main aim was to develop a negative mentoring experience questionnaire (NMEQ) and test its validity and reliability. A cross-sectional study was employed. This study adopted questionnaire-survey method with new nurses of Taiwanese hospitals. In the main study, this study adopted reliability analysis, content, validity, construct validity and criterion-related validity analysis. 255 participants were collected, with 87.93% response rate. A total of 29 items of five-dimension scale of NMEQ were proposed: four nursing manager items, four institutional items, three other medical staff items, 12 mentor items, and six mentee items. Each dimension demonstrated a reliability of 0.72 to 0.96. Exploratory factor analysis and Confirmatory factor analysis results indicated that NMEQ had acceptable convergent and discriminate validity. Correlation analysis indicated this scale and mentoring function scale exhibited a significantly negative correlation ( p < .05). NMEQ is reliable and valid for hospital nurses. It also can help clinical nursing managers to clarify the possible negative experiences and strengthen the adaptability and mental health of new staff nurses in mentoring programs. Nursing policy planners can use NMEQ to measure the negative experience of new nurses, monitor the performance of mentoring program, and further revise mentoring policies.