Nursing Research and Practice nurse-inﬂuentials through each developmental stage of life and career, and she described the various characteristics of mentoring through the stages, including, support, guidance, teaching, counseling, advising, career support, friendship, caring, conﬁdant, and satisfaction. Vance and Olsen [10] and Vance [27] deﬁned a men- toring relationship as being developmental, empowering, and nurturing, requiring commitment and self-conﬁdence extending over a period of time, where mutual sharing, learning, and growth occur in an atmosphere of respect and collegiality. Vance [27, 28] stated the importance of strength- ening mentoring in the nursing profession so that crucial aspects of the profession are retained, especially in today’s healthcare environment. Boyle and James [29] found that nurses who reported that mentors had strongly inﬂuenced their careers were signiﬁcantly aﬀected during the early years of their careers. Nurse managers (N = 100) were surveyed on their per- ceptions of mentoring experiences, expectations of men- toring relationships, organizational environment, career satisfaction, and career inﬂuence; 79% reported having a mentor at some time throughout their career, with a strong positive correlation (r = .78, P < .001) in response to a question regarding the extent to which a mentor inﬂuenced their career. The nurses who reported that mentors had a strong inﬂuence on their career believed that the most signiﬁcant contributions of a mentor were oﬀering feedback on performance, sharing expertise with the prote´ge´, serving as a role model, and demonstrating a belief in the prote´ge´. The ﬁndings revealed that one of the most crucial times for mentoring was early in a nurse’s career and that organizational support was necessary. Yoder’s [8] concept analysis of mentoring described aspects of mentoring, such as coaching, challenging assign- ments, protection, sponsorship, exposure, visibility, compe- tence, eﬀectiveness of role acquisition, role modeling, and friendship within two dimensions: that of career functions and psychosocial functions. In her concept analysis of mentoring, Yoder identiﬁed two critical antecedents (the mentor and prote´ge´), three critical attributes of mentoring (a structural role, an organizational phenomenon, and a career development relationship), and three outcomes (personal satisfaction, self-conﬁdence, and empowerment) [8]. Stewart and Krueger’s [7] concept analysis of mentoring was built upon Yoder’s work in 1990, identifying six critical attributes of the concept: a teaching-learning process, a recip- rocal role, a career development relationship, a knowledge or competence diﬀerential between participants, a duration of several years, and a resonating phenomenon; they also identiﬁed the following consequences of mentoring: career progression, development of new investigators, empower- ment, expanding professional knowledge and practice base, generativity, increasing numbers of minority nurses in master’s and doctoral programs, institutional stability, and professional socialization [7]. Dunham-Taylor et al. [30] cited mentoring of new faculty as the best method to inﬂu- ence retention and successful development of nursing faculty. Despite the literature that is available on mentoring, gaps 3 exist in empirical evidence on outcomes of mentoring, such as career satisfaction and intent to stay in the profession. 2.4. Description of the Study. This study used a combination of a descriptive comparative and correlational design. The phenomenon of interest in this study was mentoring, the independent variable was participating versus not participat- ing in a mentoring relationship as a prote´ge´ or mentor, and the dependent variables were career satisfaction and intent to stay in nursing. The study was conducted through the use of a written survey. Professional nurse databases that were available for scholarly use or purchase from the State Boards of Nursing were used to access names and addresses of RNs. The target population included RNs aged 55 or below, who were cur- rently employed in the practice, education, administration, or research setting. The age of 55 or less was selected because nurses who are over 55 may be considering retirement which could have skewed the results. Since the aging workforce in nursing is partly responsible for the predicted shortage, the aim of this study was to explore the intent of younger nurses to stay in nursing. In addition, the intent was to study nurses who were currently employed in nursing practice, education, admin- istration, or research; therefore, the letter of explanation describing the study included current employment as a criterion for inclusion in the study. The demographic ques- tionnaire also addressed the current employment setting of the study participants and their educational level. A survey was used in this study in an eﬀort to reach a large number of nurses throughout the country; the disadvantage was that the rate of return for a survey or questionnaire is often low [31]. Colored paper and 5(3/4) × 8(3/4) inch colored envelopes were used in an eﬀort to improve the visibility of the surveys in the mail and the response rate. In addition, distribution of the surveys to a larger population increased the likelihood of an adequate sample size. 2.5. Sample Selection and Sample Size. To obtain a national random sample throughout the United States, the country was divided into the nine geographic regions (see Table 1) that were used for the national sample survey of registered nurses [3]. One state was selected from each region by clustered random sampling, and the state board of nursing was contacted to obtain the mailing lists. After the lists were obtained, random sampling was used to mail the surveys to 60 RNs from each state in the ﬁrst mailing, and a second mailing was sent to 15 diﬀerent RNs from each state two weeks later in an eﬀort to increase the likelihood of more surveys being returned. In addition, after the planned sampling procedure failed to yield a suﬃcient subsample of nurses who did not participate in a mentoring relationship, a convenience sample from a small private university in the Middle Atlantic region was used in an attempt to obtain an adequate sample size. Although the purpose of the convenience sample was to try to increase the number of