PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to identify the effect of a mentoring program as a strategy for the retention of clinical nurses.
METHOD
Research subjects were 20 mentors, 20 mentees and 22 clinical nurses for a control group of mentees. A mentoring program was developed by an expert committee and applied to the experimental group for six months. Data were collected at three and six months after the application of the program from September, 2008 to March, 2009. Data were analyzed using chi-square-test, t-test, Repeated Measures ANOVA, One-way ANOVA in SPSS/Win 15.0 Program.
RESULTS
Job satisfaction, organizational commitment, empowerment, and carrier commitment in the mentees of the experimental group were significantly higher than the nurses of the control group. Intention of resignation in mentees of the experimental group were significantly lower than the nurses of the control group. Also, there were significant interaction between the groups and the times of measurements in all variables.
CONCLUSION
The mentoring program showed positive impact on the variables for maintenance of clinical nurses. Recommendation: Based on these findings, retention strategies using mentoring programs were recommended to reduce clinical nurses' resignation and improve the competency of clinical nurses that leads to the productivity of nursing organizations.

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