The Impact Of Incivility In Healthcare

Incivility in Healthcare In 1999 Denis Czajkowski walks into a Philadelphia hospital where he has recently been fired after working as a psychiatric nurse. A gun in tow, he begins a 46-hour hostage standoff leading to the death of his former supervisor and another nurse administrator. Denis was sentenced to life in prison, and the reasons of his actions are unknown. One can only speculate what would drive an educated person to that extreme. Could workplace bullying and incivility be involved?

Incivility is a growing epidemic in healthcare and can be defined as, “Uncivil behavior characterized by rude, disrespectful, blaming, and intimidating” (Kerber, 2015). Incivility can be classified as violence in the workplace and includes: nonverbal

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