How do nurses negotiate multiple trust relationships in their mentoring roles?

Trust exists in relationships with patients, colleagues, managers, and relevant professional bodies. Indeed, the first item in the Nursing professional code of conduct is that “The people in your care must be able to trust you with their health and wellbeing” (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2008). The code further stipulates that nurses have an obligation to work collaboratively in teams and behave in such a way as to uphold the reputation of the profession.

Trust is thought to be important for cooperative behaviour. Workers are said to trust others when they have optimistic expectations of them and are willing to be vulnerable and take a risk with regard to the other fulfilling their expectations (Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, & Camerer, 1998; Whitener, 1997). The relationships between mentors and students and with their work colleagues seem to call for a consideration of collegial trust. Collegial trust operates on an interpersonal level and carries an expectation of the other person working with professional integrity and doing what is expected (Jackson, 2008; Sullivan, Francis, & Hegney, 2008).

The data in my study reveals a complex web of relationships that mentors negotiate. With their work colleagues, they sometimes need to advocate for their mentoring activities and the presence of students in the workplace, or they may need to confide in colleagues about aspects of their mentoring practice, or delegate to them for supervision of and judgements about their student. With the partner university, it is important to them that their judgements and concerns about students are taken seriously, but also that their goodwill in taking students and making the effort to support students is recognised and not taken for granted. With students, they make efforts at befriending in order to put students at ease, and to foster a sense of trust that enables disclosure by the student. Such disclosures can be seen as essential for supporting reflection on practice. However, this befriending must be tempered by the requirement of mentors to assess students' practice, determining their eligibilty to progress in their training, or even to progress onto the professional register. With regard to patients, mentors are protective, seeking to reduce any risk associated with students providing care. They also require patients to cooperate with the student, and accept that some patients will refuse care by a student.