Mentoring Prevalence and Need among Pre-clinical and Clinical Medical and Dental Students in a Nigerian University

Aims: Having a mentor is critical to having a successful career. Despite the known benefits of mentoring, studies have shown a low prevalence among students in the medical and dental schools particularly in developing countries. This study compared the level of awareness, prevalence and degree of need for mentoring relationships among pre-clinical and clinical students at a Nigerian medical and dental school as well as the extent to which this need has been met.

Study Design: Analytical cross-sectional study.

Place and Duration of Study: College of Health Sciences, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria between March and June, 2015.

Methodology: We interviewed 151 and 224 pre-clinical and clinical medical and dental students respectively, selected via a multi-stage sampling technique. Data was collected with a pre-tested self-administered questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical tools of the SPSS version 20 with statistical significance set at P<.05.

Results: Findings showed a 97.3% awareness of mentoring overall that was higher among clinical students, (P=.018). Prevalence of mentoring was a low 30.9% overall, though higher among pre-clinical students with P =.453. However, the odd that a pre-clinical student will have a mentor was >1 (OR=1.19) while it was <1 for the clinical students (OR=0.84). The degree of need for mentoring was also significantly higher among the pre-clinical students, (P=.027). None of age, sex and awareness of mentoring was significantly associated with having a mentor or the degree of need for mentoring. The need for mentoring is yet to be met for >50% of the pre-clinical (P=.024) and clinical (P=.002) students.

Conclusion: Pre-clinical students demonstrated higher need for mentoring. An institutionalization of an effective mentoring program with particular focus on the pre-clinical phase may help meet this great need for mentoring and thereby increase its prevalence among medical and dental students in Nigerian training institutions.