Aim(s): Clinical mentoring is critical to achieve nursing competency for nursing students practicing in the clinical sites. However, nursing students in the Kyrgyz Republic had limited opportunities of clinical mentoring due to the low awareness of the clinical instruction as well as lack of trained clinical mentors. The study aimed to identify the needs of clinical instruction by nursing mentors, and to develop a training module for clinical mentoring program in a public university of the Kyrgyz Republic.

Method(s): This descriptive and methodological study was conducted. Needs assessment was done for nursing students and clinical supervisors using questionnaires on current nursing practice education and two focus group interviews. Brainstorming workshops were held by multidisciplinary teams and faculty members. Summarized content analysis and descriptive statistics were used. Training modules were developed by Identification, empowering, training clinical supervisors, resource/capacity/leadership development, and one group pilot-testing. The developed module was evaluated with content validity as well as measuring learner satisfaction and mentor confidence.

Result(s): The themes from the interviews were limited orientation, no supervision opportunities during clinical practice, none of practicum instruction, lack of nurses’ competency, formal training and education opportunities of clinical preceptors/instructors by the nursing department. The training modules consisted of seven components with courseware and operating manuals and content validity was established by seven? experts. Training modules and programs for clinical supervisors were established and validated with the expert content validity test. Four times of clinical supervisor training sessions were held in online and offline courses resulting in 32 clinical supervisors completing the sessions. After participating in a training session, newly appointed clinical mentors reported positive satisfaction and improved teaching confidence.

Conclusion(s): Clinical mentor appointment and student placement are newly introduced concepts in settings where nursing discipline is evolving. Clinical mentorship training opportunities in the study may provide nursing students with responsible clinical education compared to the traditional apprentice education.

Keywords: clinical mentor; clinical supervisor; mentorship; module development

* Funding statement: This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (Ministry of Education) (No. NRF-2020H1C8A1048049, NRF-2022H1A7A2A02000011).