| The role of the nurse practitioner (NP) has grown tremendously within the past 15 years. Continued growth is expected as NPs fill the gap in patient care responsibilities. Years of research have demonstrated the difficulty novice NPs experience when transitioning from RN to NP. Support for the novice NP has been found to be a facilitating factor in the transition; however, there is no consensus in the literature as to what type of support is most beneficial. The purpose of this dissertation was to determine the effects of a blended mentoring program, combining both traditional and electronic forms of mentoring, on the perceptions of social support of novice NPs when transitioning from a staff RN to a novice NP in a hospital setting. Using a quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test design, a convenience sample was obtained from novice NPs working in a large Midwestern pediatric teaching hospital. The Social Provision Scale(c) (SPS) was administered as a pre-test at baseline and again as a post-test after three months of participation in a mentoring relationship to measure perception of social support. Supporting novice NPs during the transition from staff RN to novice NP has been shown to ease this transition and result in NPs performing their role more independently at an earlier stage. |
