Bette Mariani

Patient safety simulation: learning about safety never seemed more fun.

While other industries have effectively used simulation as an educational strategy to improve safety and performance, nurse educators have not yet embraced this as an educational tool for safety initiatives. This article examines the benefit of using simulation exercises as an adjunct to didactic teaching and describes how one hospitals nurse educators adapted simulation methodology to educate the nurses on the complexity of safe medication administration and the importance of critical thinking in daily practice.

The Effect of Mentoring on Career Satisfaction of Registered Nurses and Intent to Stay in the Nursing Profession

Mentoring is important in the career development of novice and experienced nurses. With the anticipated shortage in nursing, it is important to explore factors such as mentoring that may contribute to career satisfaction and intent to stay in the profession. This study explored the effects of mentoring on career satisfaction and intent to stay in nursing, and the relationship between career satisfaction and intent to stay in nursing. It was conducted through a mailed survey of RNs 55 years or younger currently in practice, education, administration, or research. Career satisfaction was measured through the use of the newly developed Mariani Nursing Career Satisfaction Scale. Findings revealed no statistically significant effect of mentoring on career satisfaction and intent to stay in nursing. There was a statistically significant relationship between career satisfaction and intent to stay in nursing. The majority of nurses reported participating in a mentoring relationship. Although the findings related to mentoring, career satisfaction, and intent to stay were not statistically significant, there was a prevalence of mentoring in nursing, thus suggesting the need for future research to identify outcomes of mentoring. In addition, the study contributed a newly developed instrument to measure the concept of career satisfaction in nursing.

Persons with Disability: Their Experiences as Standardized Patients in an Undergraduate Nursing Program

&NA; This descriptive qualitative study examined experiences of standardized patients with disabilities (SPWDs) in an undergraduate nursing program through focus group and telephone interviews. Content analysis identified five themes: 1) desire to improve care for others, 2) opportunity to be productive again, 3) joy in seeing students learn, 4) desire for more feedback on performance, and 5) importance of having SPWDs assess accessibility of the facility. SPWDs participated to improve sensitivity of students to disability and appreciated having a voice in educating future nurses. They requested more feedback on their performance and identified accessibility issues in the state‐of‐the‐art nursing school building.

Development and psychometric testing of the Mariani Nursing Career Satisfaction Scale.

Background and Purpose: The Mariani Nursing Career Satisfaction Scale© (MNCSS) was developed to explore the influence of mentoring on career satisfaction of registered nurses (RNs). A review of the literature revealed no contemporary valid and reliable measure of career satisfaction. Methods: The MNCSS is a semantic differential of 16 opposite adjective pairs on which participants rate feelings about their nursing career. The MNCSS was used in a pilot study and three major studies exploring career satisfaction of RNs. Validity, reliability, and exploratory factor analysis (FA) were computed to explore the internal structure of the instrument. Results: The newly developed instrument had a content validity index (CVI) of .84 and Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency reliabilities of .93–.96 across three major studies. Exploratory FA (N = 496) revealed a univocal instrument with one factor that explains 57.8% of the variance in career satisfaction scores. Conclusions: The MNCSS is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring career satisfaction. FA of the combined data from three studies yielded one factor that measures the concept of career satisfaction.