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...
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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 majority of the articles reviewed found that education on regcognizing and addressing lateral violence was the key to decreasing the its incidence. The difference in the articles is when the education should take place; Ebrahimi, Negarandeh, Jeffrey, and Azizi, (2016) conducted a study on experienced nurses who either committed workplace violence or had witnessed it against new nurses. The small interview style study consisted of questions discussing why the participants felt the violence occurred on new nurses. At the conclusion this study reccommended preparing the experienced nurse on how to support the new nurses, providing education to the new nurses on how to deal with workplace violence, and should problems arise how to help the staff resolve
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
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
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.
Matt, S. B. (2012). Ethical and Legal Issues Associated With Bullying in the Nursing Profession. Journal Of Nursing Law, 15(1), 9-13. doi:10.1891/1073-7472.15.1.9
Eques, A. L., & Leinung, E. Z. (2013, July-September). The bully within and without: Strategies to address horizonal violence in nursing. Nursing Forum, 48(3), 185-190. https://doi.org/10.1111/nuf.12028
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
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
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
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
Therefore, this position statement is relevant because these abuses can be seen in day-to-day healthcare environment. The effects of violence in nursing can be harmful to the proper function within a workplace. It can be damaging to the nursing profession and patient care. According to (Johnston et al., 2010, p.36), workplace violence is “spreading like a ‘superbug.’” Studies have shown, that lateral violence, nurse-on-nurse, has been one of the highest incidence of violence within the workplace. Also, statistics have shown that lateral violence has one of the most emotional impacts on an individual. This will be further discussed below. For these reasons, it is important for healthcare workers to validate the detrimental effects violence can have in the workplace, and be prepared to combat and prevent workplace violence.