The Experiences of Nursing Students of the Mentorship Program: a Qualitative The Experiences of Nursing Students of the Mentorship Program: a Qualitative Study

clinical education is an essential part of nursing education, but unfortunately an appropriate program which can meet the expectations of the students has not been planned and executed. The aim of this qualitative study was to determine the experiences of nursing students of the Mentorship Program.

This was a qualitative and theme analysis study, in which sixteen nursing students were selected and interviewed. Data were collected with semi-structural and in-depth interviewing, and interviewing was continued until data saturation. All interviews were written on a paper and were analyzed in three levels.

By analyzing the data, we found 59 primary themes that were divided into two categories of strengths and weaknesses. Of the five sub-themes of the strengths category, two (participation in care, and quality improvement) were factors related to education and three (student satisfaction, abilities and skills of students, and abilities of the lecturer) were related to individual factors. Of the six sub-themes of the weaknesses category, two (staff, and lecturer) were of the management factors and three (discipline, lesson plan, time limitation) were education factors.

As it is suggested by the comments, this program had some strengths and weaknesses. Findings of this study are applicable to improving the clinical education of nursing students, their services in the society.