IMPLEMENTATION OF A PEER MENTOR PROGRAM IN NEW GRADUATE PEDIATRIC INTENSIVE CARE UNIT NURSES TO REDUCE BURNOUT: A PRACTICE CHANGE

ABSTRACTPiper L Rogers: Implementation of a Peer Mentor Program in New Graduate Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Nurses to Reduce Burnout: A Practice Change Project(Under the direction of Ashley Kellish) Purpose: The purpose of this practice change project was to implement a peer-mentor program for new graduate pediatric intensive care unit nurses to reduce burnout, while supporting a healthy work environment and a smooth transition to practice. Background: The current nursing shortage is so severe that the American Nurse’s Association (ANA) considers it a national health crisis as it is increasing nurse dissatisfaction, burnout, turnover, and moral distress in the new graduate nurse population (Bong, 2019). Thus, specialized programs to retain new nurses may be essential to close the growing gap for greater access to qualified healthcare professionals. Methods: A 16-week mentorship program was implemented that included two mentorship training educational sessions and the matching of an experienced nurse mentor with a new graduate nurse mentee. After training and matching, the pairs were expected to meet twice each month for a minimum of one-hour. New Graduate Nurses’ sense of burnout was measured before and after the intervention using the Casey-Fink Graduate Nurse Experience Survey (Casey et al., 2004) and the Burnout Assessment Tool (Schaufeli et al., 2020). Results: The mean scores for the comfort and confidence subscale increased post-intervention but was not statistically significant (p = 0.367). The mean scores for the job satisfaction subscale decreased however, it also was not statistically significant (p = 0.203). The only dimension of burnout that was not increased post-intervention was the cognitive impairment, which stayed flat with no meaningful difference (p = 0.949). Conclusion: While the literature suggests that mentorship programs in acute care setting are essential to retaining new nurses and decreasing burnout, the findings of this project did not indicate a meaningful change in NGNs sense of burnout, level of comfort and confidence, or job satisfaction. Several limitations were noted in this project including a small sample size that only allowed four months of mentorship, with no clear measure for compliance of the mentors/mentees. Regardless, the findings from this program provide insight and recommendations for future NGN peer mentor programs.Doctor of Nursing Practic