Developing an Effective Mentoring Nurse Model for The Royal Thai Army Nurses.

Health care reform and Educational reform in 1999 made Thai's health care system had more concern in quality of nursing care and hospital accreditation. Thus, we found that mentoring was the best process in preparing nursing students and novice-nurses developed to be professional nurses in the future. The purpose of this study was to develop an effective mentoring nurse (EMN) model for The Royal Thai Army Nurses. This descriptive research's samples consisted of 202 mentornurses and novice-nurses and the completed response were 193 pairs of nurses (95.50%). The instruments were the questionnaires. The quality of instruments was validated by Cronbach's alpha internal consistencies and the EMN scale was 0.97. Data was analyzed by using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, Pearson's product moment correlation coefficient and Chi-square test statistic. The EMN model was tested by LISREL. The model consisted of 3 latent variables of input, process, and output of mentoring and 13 observed variables. The characteristics of effective mentoring nurses (EMN) were attitude, personality, motivation of being mentors, and readiness of being mentors. The measurement model of MEN was consistent with the empirical data. The full model accounted for 63.05 percent of variance in the EMN variable. The model validation of the best-fitted model provided with chi-square = 14.51, p = 0.99, degree of freedom = 33, GFI = 0.99, AGFI = 0.97, and RMR = 0.02. The purposing model consisted of 11 observed variables (time of relationship and novice-nurses' work stress were removed), accounted for 70.05 percent of variance in the MEN variable. The model validation of the best-fitted model provided with chi-square = 11.27, p = 0.96, degree of freedom = 21, GFI = 0.99, AGFI = 0.97, and RMR = 0.02 This study was utilized data for health administrators in promoting effectiveness of mentoring nurses to develop the quality of professional nurses. In turn, they are more likely to stay in their positions and provide better nursing care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]