The educator as facilitator of trust in the nursing education environment

BACKGROUND: Trust and trusting are inclinations to believe in the honesty and sincerity of a person. Trust and trusting relationships in nursing education form the foundation of safety, acknowledging vulnerabilities and allowing reciprocal expectations and beliefs to rely on each other during the teaching and learning process. The purpose of this article is to explore the views of nurse educators in facilitating trust and trusting relationships during teaching and learning. METHODS AND FINDINGS: This article focuses on the role of educators in facilitating the development of trust. A qualitative approach with a grounded theory design was used. The fourteen nurse educators included to address the first objective of the study, were purposively sampled, and the requisite data was collected by conducting individual in-depth face-to-face interviews. Initial, focus and theoretical coding were used to analyse the data until saturation was evident. The following themes emerged: competencies of the educator; setting of standards and the maintaining of consistency; and professional credibility and the value of trusting relationships. The outcome of the findings indicated that the educator plays a key role in establishing trust in nursing education. The study did not include professional nurses in practice as role-players in the nursing education environment. This could be regarded as a limitation, as the professional nurse in practice also has a teaching role, thus, indirectly, forming part of the nursing education environment. A recommendation was made that further research on trust should include professional nurses. CONCLUSIONS: The study highlights that trust is dependent on, and facilitated by, professional conduct, ethical behaviour, competencies, knowledge and skills of the role-players in the teaching and learning environment. The recommendations made have a bearing on developing trust and trusting relationships in nursing education.