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When you hear about abuse in the workplace the last people you think of would be nurses. Nurses are the people who help other people when they are ill. Nurses are usually the first healthcare providers that you see, so to think of nurses being abused would seem unbelievable, but according to a 2014 study in the Journal of Emergency Nursing,76% of nurses experience some violence in the work place and 30% experienced a physical assault. Most nurses do not report violent incidents believing that reporting does not make any difference since violence is expected and tolerated, that incidents are seen as a sign of incompetence, or that they might encounter retaliation by ER management and hospital administration. Abuse
Many of these people may feel they have reasons for their abusive nature although this does not make it right. Emergency room nurses are among the highest who experience physical abuse. Emergency room nurses deal first hand with those that come through the doors with various illnesses and emergency situations. For the patient and family this is the most stressful time not knowing what is wrong or when patients are still very much under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Several studies have found that most of the physical abuse was pulling or grabbing and most of that was by patients on drugs, alcohol, and the psych patients. Studies have also found that less abuse occurs in well-lit ER’S with panic buttons. There is a need for more reporting of incidents and stiffer penalties for those who abuse. Nurses should not feel that this is part of the job. Many nurses were reported to leave their jobs for another, to get out of the ER and leave nursing altogether. No federal laws protect nurses from violence in the
Many times seasoned nurses and management have cliques and ways of abusing new nurses and students. Abuse does not have to be only physical as it is also emotional and many times is considered bullying. Many new nurses and students are subjected to rejection. They will be left out of the loop and left to find their own way. Many seasoned nurses claim to not have the time to show new nurses things they have not encountered before. Management will show favoritism when making assignments, giving the most difficult to new nurses. Many student and new nurses are familiar with the phrase “nurses eat their young.”Unfortunately, this behavior is often considered a “rite of passage” for the new nurse. However, it generally implies a negative culture, void of positive physical and emotional support from experienced nurses. One would think with the shortage of nurses and complaints of heavy workloads that seasoned nurses would be grateful for the help and willing to teach new nurses. Many new nurses are anxious to do a good job and go above and beyond in their standard of care and older nurses see this as a threat. Doctors will even be verbally abusive making nurses feel incompetent. Many nurses will withhold important patient information in reports leaving the other to find out on their own. Some nurses who bully others cannot separate personal
Often time, nurses has been viewed by patients, their family members and the medical team as basic emotional care givers, pill crushers or cart pullers and not as healthcare professionals who are more interesting in health promotion, disease prevention and better patient outcomes. They also often forget the emotional, physical, mental, and caring part that is involved with the profession. And to make matters worse, nurses are continued to be viewed as a threat by doctors more than ever before especially with the opening of Nurse Practitioners programs.
Lateral Violence in Nursing Lateral violence is an act of aggression that occurs among nurses (Becher & Visovsky, 2012), many nurses are exposed to incidents of lateral violence two or more times weekly (Ceravolo, Schwartz, Foltz-Ramos, & Castner, 2012) (American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, 2014). Lateral violence which is also called bullying, incivility, disruptive behaviors and horizontal violence may be covert or overt acts of verbal or nonverbal aggressions (American Nurses Association, 2011). Lateral violence may be verbal, physical or psychological in nature (Blair, 2013). Victims of lateral violence may have profound psychological effects including fatigue, insomnia, stress, depression, shame, guilt, isolations, substance abuse,
Nurses are caring by nature. Nurses care for family members while at home, community members who may be neighbors, church members or friends from school and sports with children in common; however, nurses are known to display uncaring attitudes towards each other. When nurses are discourteous and disrespectful towards one another this may be known as workplace incivility. Incivility is defined by Merriam-Webster as, “the quality of state of being uncivil and a rude or discourteous act” (n.d.). Alexander (2017) related incivility to the events of the 2016 United States election as “rude and impolite behaviors that may be manifested when people feel fear or mistrust” (p. 79). Healthcare is subject to the same negative influence through communication between healthcare providers, educators and patients.
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
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
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
I notice that newer nurses feel a great amount of pressure to do things perfectly, which anyone who has been in nursing for a while can tell you that nursing is an imperfect profession. We are humans, caring for other humans and we are all just doing the best that we can and what is in the best interest of our patients. Maintaining a positive attitude is important, and challenging at times. Even though the environment that many of us work in is controlled, good or bad, many of the things that occur are beyond our control. Learning to go with the flow and ask for help when needed can make nursing a little bit less overwhelming.
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
...ic violence, as we can see from the previous read information, results in injury. It is a very serious issue for the people within a violent home setting and with today’s legal system domestic violence cases are being taken extremely serious. It is important that we as nurses, if we feel someone is in a violent home setting, to identify these patients and assess as needed. By nurses identifying and assessing victims of violent acts we can help these people and contribute to decreasing the number of violent acts that occur. If a nurse or anyone knows or suspects that someone is being abused, we need to let that victim know there are alternative solutions, choices they can make, and that there is hope to solve the problem at hand. We should also let this victim know that without help, this problem may only get worse and could progress in frequency and severity.
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.
About 32% of RNs worked on-call hours (either paid or unpaid). When we consider all types of overtime, 60.1% of RNs worked at least one type of overtime among mandatory, voluntary, and on-call. About 16% of nurses actually worked more than 40 hours in a typical week. Among nurse injuries, verbal abuse (56.6%) and bruises or contusions (49.7%) are the two most frequently experienced nurse injuries. In total, 79.2% of nurses experienced one of these injuries during the past month. In regards to adverse patient events, medication errors (44.5%) and patient falls (38.2%) are the most frequently reported adverse patient events by nurses. Sixty-one percent of nurses perceived that patients in their unit experienced one of these adverse events during their hospital stay (Bae,
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).
Vessey, J., Demarco, R., & DiFazio, R. (2010). Bullying, harassment, and horizontal violence in the nursing workforce: The state of the science. Annual Review Of Nursing Research, 28, 133-157. doi:10.1891/0739-6686.28.133
... of intimate partner violence: implications for nursing care. Critical Care Nursing Clinics of North America, 24(1), 27-38.