8 studies may have an eﬀect on nursing practice, education, administration, research, and science. Although the results of this study were not statistically signiﬁcant related to the outcomes of career satisfaction and intent to stay, 136 of the 173 participants indicated that they had participated in a mentoring relationship either formally or informally as a mentor or prote´ge´ at some point in their career. Nurses should continue to encourage mentoring relationships within the profession to foster some of the other positive outcomes of mentoring such as personal satisfaction, self- conﬁdence and empowerment [8], and professional devel- opment [45, 46]. Mentoring may help bridge the gap between novice and expert practice and help new nurses feel satisﬁed with nursing as a profession, increase retention and, hopefully, decrease the impact of the nursing shortage. Kalagher [47] wrote that nurse leaders were in a position to positively inﬂuence the careers of novice and expert nurses. Mentoring and career satisfaction could contribute to reten- tion of registered nurses in the profession, while providing an opportunity to groom future nurse leaders. Mentoring programs may be costly, but orientation and turnover in the profession are also costly; therefore, retention of nurses in the profession through mentoring programs may be a cost reducing measure for administrators. Leaders are in a position to inﬂuence the development of more formal mentoring programs by validating the eﬀectiveness and ﬁnancial impact of such programs. Although, this study did not yield statistically signiﬁcant results supporting the outcomes of career satisfaction and intent to stay in the profession with a mentoring relationship, the presence of the phenomenon of mentoring was very apparent. Through this study, future research initiatives can be identiﬁed to explore the outcomes of mentoring. In addition, this study contributed to nursing science and re- search through the development of a new valid and reliable nursing research instrument, the MNCSS, to measure the concept of career satisfaction in nursing. This study demonstrates that mentoring is a prevalent phenomenon in nursing. Mentoring is a concept that is well- supported in the literature; research that continues to explore mentoring relationships in nursing can help demonstrate the positive outcomes of mentoring in nursing. 4. Conclusions This study explored whether participation in a mentoring relationship had a positive eﬀect on career satisfaction and intent to stay in the nursing profession. Based on recent statistics in the literature, despite increasing nursing school enrollment, it is predicted that the nursing shortage will continue. This study did not demonstrate a statistically sig- niﬁcant diﬀerence in career satisfaction and intent to stay between nurses who participated in a mentoring relationship and nurses who did not participate in a mentoring relation- ship. However, there was a statistically signiﬁcant positive relationship between career satisfaction and intent to stay in the nursing profession. Despite the ﬁndings, this study contributes to the body of knowledge for the nursing profession related to mentoring Nursing Research and Practice relationships, nurses’ career satisfaction, and intent to stay in the nursing profession. Nurses responded favorably about their careers in nursing and the importance of mentoring relationships which is promising for the profession of nurs- ing. Further theory development and research are needed to add to the body of knowledge about the outcomes of mentoring related to career satisfaction and intent to stay in nursing. Acknowledgments The author is grateful for the time and eﬀort of the dis- sertation committee: Lois R. Allen, PhD, RN, Barbara J. Patterson, PhD, RN, ANEF, and Mary B. Walker, EdD, RN, as well as Suzanne Smeltzer, RN, EdD, FAAN for her advice and expertise. References [1] American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), “Nursing Shortage Fact Sheet,” 2011, http://www.aacn.nche .edu/media-relations/fact-sheets/nursing-shortage. [2] AACN, “Nursing Shortage Fact Sheet,” September 2006, http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Media/FactSheets/Nursing- Shortage.htm. [3] Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, “The registered nurse population: National sample survey of registered nurses. March 2004 Preliminary ﬁndings,” March 2004, http://bhpr .hrsa.gov/healthworkforce/rnsurveys/rnsurvey2004.pdf. [4] P. Buerhaus, D. Staiger, and D. 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