More handpicked essays just for you.
Sample essay workplace violence among nurses
The effects of workplace violence in the healthcare
The effects of workplace violence in the healthcare
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The term “nurses eat their young” has been an adage used in the healthcare industry for many years. For a profession built on caring for the ill and working in a collegial manner, it is a deep dark secret to the outside world (Hippeli, 2009). It is often unclear why nurses behave in this manner.
One of the tragedies of bullying among nurses is that senior nurses usually begin the behavior against young nurses during the nursing student’s clinical practice (Thomas & Burk, 2009). This has caused some students to leave nursing even before graduating. Moreover, the turnover rate for new nurses who have experienced bullying in a hospital setting can be as high as 50% within the first six months of employment.
Many experts believe that changing the nurse bullying environment is the responsibility of management. Hutchinson, Vickers, Jackson, & Wilkes (2006) are strong advocates for making the workplace more democratic and less hierarchical. Lewis (2004) points to “zero tolerance” policies that prevent violence and bullying altogether. They also recommend that student nurses receive training in preparing and coping with bullying. It is a sad commentary that experts in the field believe that training in how to respond to bullies should be part of the nursing curriculum.
Dellasega (2009) quotes many important studies dealing with bullying among nurses and finds that anywhere from 25% to 50% of new nurses experience horizontal violence within their first year of practice. Several NCRP theories support efforts to examine horizontal violence in nursing: intergroup conflict, oppressed group behavior, symbolic interaction, circuits of power, and hierarchical abuse. In essence, horizontal violence may be an indicator of the undercur...
... middle of paper ...
... 14, 52–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2934.2005.00535.x
Longo, J. (2007, June). Horizontal violence among nursing students. Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, 21 (3), 177–178. doi: 10.1016/j.apnu.2007.02.005
Murray, J. S. (2009, September–October). Workplace bullying in nursing: A problem that can’t be ignored. MEDSURG Nursing, 18 (5), 273–276. Retrieved from http://www.amsn.org/sites/default/files/documents/practice-resources/healthy-work-environment/resources/MSNJ_Murray_18_05.pdf
Stevens, S. (2002, September-October). Nursing workforce retention: Challenging a bullying culture. Health Affairs, 21 (5), 189–193. http://dx.doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.21.5.189
Thomas, S. P., & Burk, R. (2009, July–August). Junior nursing students’ experiences of vertical violence during clinical rotations. Nursing Outlook, 57, 226–231. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2008.08.004
Nurse horizontal violence towards new nurses and nursing students includes methodical, unwelcome or unprovoked behaviors with the intent to upset, control, humiliate, harm, or segregate (Hutchinson, Vickers, Jackson, & Wilkes, 2006). Horizontal violence can be furtive and shrewd (such as withholding information or spreading gossip) as well as obvious and direct, such as reproaching in front of other staff, false complaints, or threatening body language (Hutchinson et al., 2006). Other forms of the experience, described both in nursing and non-nursing literature, include bullying, mobbing, intimidation, and aggression (Farrell, 2001). Bullies form cliques and engage in repetit...
Berry, P. A., Gillespie, G. L., Gates, D., & Schafer, J. (2012). Novice Nurse Productivity Following Workplace Bullying. Journal Of Nursing Scholarship, 44(1), 80-87. doi:10.1111/j.1547-5069.2011.01436.x
The trauma related to negative behavior can afflict the healthcare environment on many levels, from creating a hostile work environment in which job performance is affected, by increasing job turnover and causing nurses to leave the profession altogether. The Joint Commission states that in the United States 65.6 million workers have experienced or witnessed bullying, psychological harassment affects 38 percent of healthcare workers, and 44 percent of nurses are impacted by this behavior (The Joint Commission, 2016). Inclusively, this behavior can influence the way nurses care for their patients, staffing levels, and the healthcare organization’s
Myers, et al. , (2016) performed their study as through collaboration with a New York State wide study to explore nuurses’ experience with lateral violence. Myers, et al. , (2016) offered both online and paper surveys for nurses comfort. The study revealed that lateral violence is seen throughout all roles of nurses from staa nurses to leadership roles.
Now a days, in the healthcare field the nurses are known to prevent, promote and improve the health and abilities of patients, families and communities. It is very heartbreaking to hear that in this honorable profession exists violence, bullying which is among not only nurses but also other healthcare professionals. According to the article, Reducing Violence Against Nurses: The Violence Prevention Community Meeting, violence is defined as any verbal or physical behavior resulting in, or intended to result in, physical or physiological injury, pain, or harm. In the healthcare field the term that is used when there is violence between coworkers is called horizontal violence. This is a term that is continued to be used but some hospitals have replaced it with the terms bullying or lateral violence. Horizontal violence is violence between nurses and it explains the behavior nurses have toward their coworkers and other healthcare professionals. This type of violence interferes with working together as a team and communicating between coworkers, which are things that are needed to promote and care for others.
Incivility is an issue in nursing. Our profession is of caring and as nurses we do this without second thought. It’s a cruel act of a nurse’s character to treat colleagues the opposite of the values which form why nurses are nurses. An issue of incivility exists among nursing students. According to Karatas, Ozturk, and Bektas (2017), the issue of bullying in the academic setting is well known and frequent. As a family nurse practitioner (FNP) student it is important to be aware
It has various negative effects which are persistent in nature, and the individual victim realizes the behaviour as bullying (Wilson, 2016). Bullying is associated with physical and psychological problems among nurses leading to absenteeism, poor performance, low job satisfaction, and increased turnover (Ganz, et al., 2015). The issue of bullying among nurses further affects the entire health care team including patient outcomes and health care costs due to the declining level of nurses’ performance (Becher & Visovsky, 2012). Although bullying exists in the nursing work place, they are silent in nature, and goes undetected (Becher & Visovsky,2012). Hence, identifying and managing workplace bullying needs efforts of individual facing bullying and support of the
According to (Abdollahzadeh, 2016), the issue of incivility in nursing can be defined as “low intensity” deviant behavior with the intent to harm the target. Nurses are subjected to incivility at a higher rate than other job fields, and this concern is one that has an impact on the mental health and well-being of nurses and can lead to a reduction in job satisfaction and employee recruitment and retention
Yildirim, D. (2009). Bullying among nurses and its effects. International Nursing Review, 56(4), 504-511. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19930081
Nurses continually strive to bring holistic, efficient, and safe care to their patients. However, if the safety and well-being of the nurses are threatened or compromised, it is difficult for nurses to work effectively and efficiently. Therefore, the position of the American Nurses Association (ANA) advocate that every nursing professional have the right to work in a healthy work environment free of abusive behavior such as bullying, hostility, lateral abuse and violence, sexual harassment, intimidation, abuse of authority and position and reprisal for speaking out against abuses (American Nurses Association, 2012).
However, upon securing a job, they find that things on the ground are not as they had expected them to be and this results in some of them deciding to leave the profession early. Research shows that turnovers within the nursing fraternity target person below the age of 30 (Erickson & Grove, 2011). The high turnover within the nursing fraternity results in a massive nurse shortage. This means that the nurses who decide to stay have to work for many hours resulting in exhaustion. A significant percent of nurses quitting their job sites exhaustion and discouragement as the reason that contributed to their decision. In one of the studies conducted on the issue of nurse turnover, 50% of the nurses leaving the profession argued that they felt saddened and discouraged by what they were unable to do for their patients (Erickson & Grove, 2011). When a nurse witness his/her patients suffering but cannot do anything because of the prevailing conditions he/she feels as if he/she is not realizing the reason that prompted him/her to join the nursing profession. The higher rate of nursing turnover is also affecting the quality of care nurses provide to
This is largely due to nurses leaving their jobs and/or medical incidents involving patients. A nurse working in an environment lacking civility can create stress and anxiety for the nurse. This, in turn, will lead to poor attitudes, decreased productivity, increased absences, and higher job turnover rates (Kerber, 2015). While working in uncivil environments is unhealthy for the healthcare professionals, it has also been shown to greatly affect patient care. A nurse working in a hostile environment can feel stress and overwhelmed, which can lead to an altered emotional state. Blevins (2015) reports in Impact of Incivility in Nursing that nurses working in this type of environment can “experience stress-related disorders and physical illness” which can decrease work attendance. A nurse or healthcare provider providing patient care in this emotional state can turn their negative feelings into uncivil behavior toward the patient or miss something critical to patient care, leading to patient harm or death. For example, if a nurse is upset about being disrespected from a fellow healthcare worker the nurse might turn her emotions on the patent by not asking the right assessment questions, or writing off a critical detail the patient is reporting. Incivility can also reach the patient level when a nurse is afraid to ask questions regarding patient care to the charge nurse as a result of recent bullying. The opposite is also true; If a patient is being discourteous to a nurse who is being civil and helping to the patient, it might make the nurse unconcerned about patient care satisfaction. This can spiral into an incivility cycle that is hard to
The author of this paper has a pretty good understanding of her strengths and weaknesses, and genuinely believes in people. She believes that positivity and encouragement work far better than incivility and punishment. With her career goal of returning to trauma services and becoming a trauma coordinator, the author hopes she can include healthy workplace education in her future trauma prevention program. She would like to use her position as a Trauma Coordinator to reach out to employees and the community to encourage a healthy workplace. With disease processes such as hypertension, autoimmune disorders, depression, anxiety, and PTSD associated with workplace bullying (Healthy Workplace Bill [HWB], 2016), the author feels this education is beneficial, and compliments trauma prevention. Furthermore, she would like to bring some of the tools from the Healthy Workplace Bill (Healthy Workplace Bill [HWB], 2016) to the nurse practice counsel, shared governance committees, and organizational leaders. She would like bullying to be considered a never-event, much like hospital-acquired infections. By employing some of the tactics proposed in the healthy workplace bill, the author of this paper believes she can make a
As the forthcoming nursing shortage threatens the United States, organizations must be knowledgeable in the recruitment and retention of nurses. The challenge facing health care organizations will be to retain sufficient numbers of nurses to provide safe, efficient, quality care to patients. Organizations will look to recruit and attract quality nurses to fill vacancies. As turnover in nursing is a recurring problem, health care organizations will look for strategies to reduce turnover. The rate of turnover for bedside nurses in 2013 ranged from 4.4 to 44.6% (American Nurses Association, 2013). Nurse retention focuses on keeping nurses in the organization and preventing turnover. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the significance of recruitment and retention of nurses, review the literature, and explore how recruitment and retention apply to nursing.
To better understand the effects of oppression and the relationship between sabotage (horizontal violence) in the operating room and job satisfaction among perioperative nurses, Dunn (2003) published this study. He described sabotage as a dysfunctional but common method of dealing with anger and frustration. When sabotage is directed at coworkers who are at the same level within an organization's hierarchy, it is called horizontal violence.