Background:
Demographic changes will further increase the number of people with chronic illnesses and multimorbidity, expanding the need for care in the coming decade. Together with limited resources these tendencies demand that interventions to maintain a certain level of quality of care (QoC) are not only effective, but also efficient. Mentors in healthcare organizations facilitate positive learning climates and serve as evidence-based practice role models, while also being a part of the regular care team. Mentors can thus be seen not only as an effective, but also an efficient, method to improve or maintain QoC. To take on the role of mentor, mentors often follow an educational course. However, mentors do not operate in a vacuum. Effectively taking on the mentor role requires that learned knowledge and competencies be put to practice in the work environment, where a plethora of contextual factors, ranging from interpersonal to structural, can influence taking on the mentor role. In order to successfully implement mentors as efficient and effective methods to maintain or improve QoC, contextual barriers should be addressed. To create insight in the factors that influence mentorship after following an educational course, a context analysis of the work environment was conducted to map factors that influence taking on the mentor role, after following the educational course.

Methods:
Firstly, in-depth interviews were conducted with 5 tutors and 3 mentors to assess factors that influence taking on the mentor role. Secondly, qualitative results from the interviews were transformed to an online questionnaire that was sent out to the +300 mentors that had taken an educational course on mentorship in the past 10 years. Qualitative results were analysed using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research, a framework for contextual analysis.

Results:
Ninety one mentors filled in the online questionnaire. Results revealed that two contextual factors in specific negatively influenced taking on the mentor role. Firstly, demotivated students or students with a negative attitude were the biggest influencing factors, with 85% of the respondents rating them as interfering with effectively taking on the mentor role. Secondly, the majority experienced structural problems (80%: understaffing, and 68%: lack of additional resources) as a great hinderance. Surprisingly, the majority reported to have experienced a lack of support from co-workers and the head nurse, but only a minority experienced these factors as interfering with their role as mentor, which is not in line with the literature on effective mentorship.

Conclusion:
The results reveal that all respondents experienced a negative influence from contextual factors in the work environment, after following the educational course. In order to successfully implement mentors as an effective and efficient strategy to improve or maintain QoC, barriers for mentorship must be tackled within the context, namely the work environment. The question thus rises if an educational course is a sufficient enough method for mentorship implementation. Results of this study and the literature reveal that there is a need for more professional empowerment in the working environment.

Keywords: Education, implementation, quality of care, context.