[Mentor and neophyte relationship: a phenomenological study about novice nurses' socialization in intensive care unit].

GOAL: this article is aimed at examining the relationship and experience between expert and novice nurses in intensive care unit; it also assesses the implementation of mentorship functions by expert nurses.

DESIGN: phenomenological.

SETTING: three university hospitals, in Milan.

SAMPLE: 11 expert nurses, 11 novice nurses.

OUTCOME MEASUREMENT: the expert and novice nurses of our sample have been interviewed in a semi-structured context; the interviews have been audio taped and transcribed. The results of transcription have been analyzed through the Van Kaam method, to find major topics, and compared the topics found with the literature reviewed. Furthermore Darling's questionnaire was tested, as a pilot study, to assess the implementation of mentorship functions by expert nurses.

RESULTS: during the first three months in ICU, novice nurses experienced a reality shock. They said that the environment was very different from the other wards, patients were complex and unstable and there were too many things to learn. Frequently they felt frustration and inadequacy. For novice nurses positive mentoring experience, group support, congruent assignment and evaluation were related to high self-confidence, low anxiety, high job satisfaction, and low intention to leave the unit. Despite there were not formal mentoring program in the structure analyzed, novice nurses gave high evaluation to expert nurses in Darling's questionnaire.

CONCLUSION: the socialization process of a neophyte in ICU is complex. Therefore, it is necessary to plan it very well. Great importance have in this period mentor relationship, group support, congruent assignment and evaluation. This things could lower voluntary turnover and shortage, two big problems for the nowadays nursing profession. It could be interesting to implement a formal mentoring program in Italy too, to assess the practicability of it.