Bullying in the Nursing Profession
Helen Davis
Sojourner-Douglass College
Library Research
Eng 243
Mr. Morris
May 3, 2014
Inside the health care workplace, bullying is a very serious, complicated, and growing problem. Bullying can lead to intimidation, feeling of apprehension, nervousness, panic, and depression. Workplace bullying has become a major contributor to the increasing rate of work dissatisfaction, absences from work, lost productivity, and work related injuries in the health care institutions. This may be due to newly employed nurses, student nurses, low supervisor support, an increase in the workload, understaffing, or poor work-group relationships and lack of resources. Elimination of workplace bullying includes much needed education and developing of new policies. All nurses have the right to work in a healthy environment free of this type of abuse. This qualitative study is to identify the problem of bullying at Deer’s Head Hospital Center in Salisbury Maryland and find resolutions to prevent this type of behavior.
Problem Statement
The problem is that workplace bullying is affecting the nursing profession at Deer’s Head Hospital Center in Salisbury, Maryland. The Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organization emphasize the point that more than 50% of nurses report being a victim of abuse at work and more than 90% stated that they had witnessed abusive behavior (Olender-Russo, 2009).
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this qualitative study is to present the history of this problem in nursing, raise awareness of the challenges associated with workplace bullying among nurses, and offer potential solutions. Bullying in nursing may be due...
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...(geriatric nursing assistant) dealing with direct patient care and working closely with the nurses. This is when I became aware of the bullying issue at Deer’s Head Hospital Center. I was then promoted to Health Records Technician after a few years, which my responsibilities became working closely with the doctors and nurses on the unit involving admissions, patient orders, patient information, and discharges. I work directly on the units in the hospital. With my position, I am aware of what is happening on the nursing units between supervisors, nurses, geriatric nursing assistants, patients, and administration. I am witness to many of the bullying issues that arise at Deer’s Head Hospital Center in Salisbury Maryland.
References
Olender-Russo, L. (2009). Creating a Culture of Regard: An Antidote for Workplace Bullying. Creative Nursing, 15(2), 75.
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.
Horizontal violence is not a topic that medical faculties discuss on a day-to-day basis, but it is an enormous problem within the health care system. In this research the author looks at bulling from a registered nurse (r.n.) aspect .The effects on patient centered care can be detrimental for patients and r.n.’s. The work place needs to be a safe place for not only the patients but also the employees. With the rise of new graduate nurses who are employed by the medical facilities, they too are starting to face horizontal violence within the first year on the job, which leads to retention of nurses in the medical field. Horizontal violence will continue to arise if nurses do not stand up to bullying and empower victims to speak up on horizontal violence.
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
Incivility is not a new topic in the nursing community. The saying that, “nurses eat their young” has been around for decades. The manifestation of this phrase includes bullying, lateral and horizontal abuse, incivility, harassment, and disruptive behaviors (Sauer, 2012). Dealing with these behaviors can make or break a new nurse. This paper will explore the issue of incivility, importance to nursing, storytelling, creating a healthful environment, and practice application.
This leads to decreased patient satisfaction, safety issues, and health care providers seeking a more professional work environment (Lachman, 2014). Despite the negative outcomes from disruptive behavior, it is still present in many health care facilities. One report states that 39% of graduates witnessed bullying in their first year of practice, and 31% said they were the victims of bullying (Lachman, 2014). The author also notes that 85% of nurses experience horizontal/lateral violence. Large numbers of health care professionals witness disruptive behaviors.
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
Nurses as caring professionals, it is surprising that incivility such as bullying exists in nursing workplace. Workplace bullying is a major occupational health concern among nurses worldwide, and it has increased health care cost due to high turnover (Stagg & Sheridan, 2010). Research shows that 20-25% of nurses suffer from bullying behaviour in the workplace (Wilson, 2016). The prevalence of bullying has many negative consequences such as negative health outcome of the nurse victims, the organizational performance, and the adverse patient outcomes (Wilson, 2016). Hence, combating the issue of bullying in nursing is of heightened importance (Ganz, et al., 2015). Nurse leaders can play an important role in maintaining the positive workplace environment, and prevent the bullying (College of Nurses Ontario, 2017). In this paper, I will explain about workplace bullying in nursing, and how the transformational leadership style can be used to create a positive work environment. For this, I
Workplace bullying is a pattern of behaviour intended to intimidate, offend, degrade or humiliate a particular person. It can include physical abuse or the threat of abuse, bullying usually causes psychological rather than physical harm. The respondents are being bullied by their employers but these helped them to strive harder to achieve their goals. Although job challenges can be hard to deal with, overcoming those issues can help an employee become stronger and more confident.
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
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
Workplace bullying is increasingly being recognised as a serious problem in society. Reports from the general media and professional press suggest that there is increasing evidence that the scale of bullying, harassment and violence amongst health care staff is widespread (UNISON, 2003). Chaboyer, Najman, and Dunn (2001) explain that although nursing in Australia is now considered a profession, the use of horizontal violence, bullying and aggression in nursing interactions has been identified as a serious problem. Levett-Jones (as cited in Clare, White, Edwards, & van Loon, 2002) explains that the recipients or victims of bullying within the nursing profession are often graduate nurses, with 25% of graduates reporting negative experiences. Bullying behaviour often renders the workplace a harmful, fearful and abusive environment and has a devastating effect on the nurse, healthcare team and patient. This essay will discuss the issue of bullying within the nursing profession, with a particular focus on the experiences of graduate nurses. The contributing historical, social, political and economic factors will be explored in order to better understand the origins of this trend. The subsequent impact of bullying on nursing practice will be analysed and recommendations for practice, supported by current literature, will be provided.
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).
Stokowski, L. (2010, September 30). A matter of respect and dignity: Bullying in the nursing profession. Medscape. Retrieved from http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/729474
According to Freda Dekeyser Gans, the head of the Research and Development department at Hadassah-Hebrew University School of Nursing, in her article “Bullying and Its Prevention Among Intensive Care Nurses”, “Bullying refers to repeated, offensive, abusive, intimidating, or insulting behaviors; abuse of power, or unfair sanction that make recipients feel humiliated, vulnerable, or threatened, thus creating stress and undermining their self-confidence” (506). As the definition clearly depicts it, bullying is not an action that should be taken likely. It could be anything from name calling, constant harassment, poking fun at physical features or ideologies, or causing unwanted annoyance. This bullying could have a serious impact on a child’s life. It could cause a child to start feeling depressed and sad, and even cause them to become disconnected to the world around them. Sometimes, it can cause a child to take their own life. Bullying cannot be taken