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Incivility in Nursing

Honors Fellow for Social Change Purpose Statement

        Over the years, the terminology has changed: lateral violence, workplace harassment, horizontal hostility, or horizontal violence (Crawshaw, 2009) but at the end of the day incivility in nursing is an area that needs to be looked at and stopped. Incivility in nursing can look very different depending on the person it can be looked at as "hostile, aggressive, and harmful behavior by a nurse or a group of nurses toward a co-worker or group of nurses via attitudes, actions, words, and/or other behaviors" (Thobaben, 2007, p. 83). Incivility in nursing can be further defined as the rolling of eyes or making faces at a co-worker, unrealistic work assignments, hiding of or hoarding of supplies, setting a co-worker up for failure, making rude or demeaning comments, placing blame for negative outcomes, withholding important information, and backstabbing or gossiping behind a co-worker back (Taylor, 2016). As a patient, a family member, and now as a nursing student, I have witnessed the behaviors of nurses and of nursing students that can be looked at as negative behaviors in the workplace.

        Negative behaviors in the workplace can cause increased employee turnover, increased use of sick time, unsafe working environments, and the most important decreased quality of patient care (Taylor, 2016). These behaviors can also lead to decreased morale among coworkers (Faletta, 2017). The data shows that a lot of the negative behaviors are directed at nurses who are new to the floor or newly graduated nurses (Faletta, 2017). Nurses are also subject to becoming second victims in healthcare. A second victim in health care is defined as "healthcare providers who are involved in an unanticipated adverse patient event, medical error and/or patient-related injury and become victimized in the sense that the provider is traumatized by the event" (Second Victim Experience, 2020). In this situation, a nurse blames themselves for the event that took place, and this causes increased stress on the nurse.

        Looking at the social purpose of my research and work I feel that incivility needs to be addressed straight on to stop it before it occurs or for nurses to have the knowledge of its existence and the skills to stop the behaviors when they witness them. I believe through knowledge and education nurses can also be aware of incivility when they witness it, so they do not become involved in the behaviors such as gossiping behind a co-worker back.  For the Honors Fellow for Social Change project, I plan to complete a literature review looking at this issue within nursing and what is currently being done to prevent it from occurring. Next, I plan to complete a literature review on the issue, and finally, I plan to present my findings and research to final semester nursing students and faculty at National University in person or via a remote platform. I am hoping that by increasing the knowledge of incivility in nursing, role-playing scenarios, and talking openly about this issue it will decrease the incidence of occurrences in nursing. Using these skills, it will help depersonalize the situations nurses face and help facilitate a conversation that is more productive for the workplace.

        I believe to create a better world people need to be held accountable for their actions. Accountability for negative behaviors can come from peers in the workplace. Every patient a nurse sees during their career is someone’s parent, partner, or child. Someone loves them, and they deserve the best care possible. By reducing the cases of incivility in the workplace it will help increase the morale of the nurses and other staff members and in theory reduce the occurrences of patient errors.

        I truly feel nursing is a very respected profession. The community looks to nurses to be professionals at all times and the behaviors exhibited while working should reflect the professionalism that nurses worldwide have worked so hard to establish. I have been given the opportunity as an Honor's Fellow for Social Change to research this issue, find ways to stop it before it occurs, and gain the tools to prevent it from occurring around me once I start my career in nursing. Nurses do not need to eat their young or even their old. I was drawn into the field of nursing, so I can help and support my patients, so it makes sense that I help and support my coworkers. I wish to enhance the positive behaviors now that will last me during my career and I hope through education and conversations with my peers they will learn by the example I am setting.

 

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