Horizontal Violence In Nursing Essay

Even though workplace politics exists in every profession, the effects of horizontal violence, or bullying, in nursing is a costly behavior. Nurses feel devalued in the workplace and experience psychological effects. Patients are likely to experience less favorable outcomes, and

Bullying can produce and maintain a poisonous work environment. Nurses who bully can wear down the job satisfaction of their co workers which can result in a loss of productivity and increased absences in the workplace (Stokowski, 2010). Victims of bullying often have a feeling of impending doom and dread when they think about their upcoming work days. Each time the bullying reoccurs, the victims usually

In 2009 unspecified electronic survey was conducted with factors such as type, frequency, perpetrators, and professional/personal concerns on bullying identified (Quine, 2001). The results revealed that out of 330 RN respondents, 72% reported positive to bullying at various occasions in line of their career. Of this segment, clear hostility seemed most frequent in surgical/medical, operational rooms, emergency, obstetrical areas of care and adolescent residential behavioral/ mental health units. The main culprits to these act are non-other than; charge nurses, senior nurses, physicians and nurse managers. This is impartial research among others that have been

Safety is an important factor and is a high priority in healthcare. Kelly, Fenwick, Brekke, and Novaco (2015) shared that workplace violence impairs the staff perceptions of safety. However, both patients and staff are affected by workplace violence in many ways, from physical to emotional aspects. There are many reasons why violence occurs, that will be explained later in this paper. The purpose of this paper is to explain the reason and importance of the chosen phenomenon of interest. Moreover, primary and opposing philosophic viewpoints will be discussed, as well as ways of recognizing and utilizing them in nursing. The ways of knowing patterns in nursing and the utilization of these patterns will be explained, pertaining to nursing care.

The primary purpose of health care is to serve the patients’ physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. However in a recent news headline in Vancouver Sun newspaper in February 24, 2015 tackle the stories entitled: B.C. nurses to begin filing charges against violent and aggressive patients. It stated that nurses are tired of being kicked, punched and slapped. Nurses are tired for the government and health authorities to take action that leads them the need to protect themselves to get more harm. Such incidents is one of the many example of

Acts of incivility such as bullying, lateral violence, or harassment in the work place negatively affects nursing performance, mental health, and retention within an organization or even the profession of nursing (Warrner, 2016). A policy in the American Nurses Association (ANA) proclaims that the nursing profession will not tolerate violence of any kind from any source (ANA, 2015b). The Code of Ethics for Nurses by ANA requires nurses to promote an ethical environment and culture of civility with an emphasis on treating all parties with dignity and respect (ANA, 2015a). A study conducted in a rural Kentucky hospital’s medical- surgical units concluded that educational trainings in itself did not reduce the frequency of experiencing incivility in their unit (Armstrong, 2017). Nevertheless, nurses in the study reported that educational trainings increased their ability to recognize and appropriately respond to workplace incivility (Armstrong, 2017).

The purpose of this integration paper is to educate about lateral violence in the professional setting, more specifically within the nursing profession. Lateral violence is defined as “profound and pervasive source of occupational stress with physical and psychological and organizational consequences.” (Cervalolo, D). Types of lateral violence include rude comments, verbal attacks, condescending language, sexual misconduct, lack of collaboration, professionally attacking a person integrity and reputation, blaming others for your own mistakes in front of others and family members of the patient, withholding important information and other non-professional behaviors.

In a health and social care setting bullying can be lead to a nurse or socialwoker e.g. who is verbal bullying an elderly patient with sexual orientation. calling them names because of their orientation sex such as stupid, smelly, you look like a girl . Or boy. This will effect the patient physical, emotionally and

In a profession where caring is the epicenter of the job, it is disconcerting to see a high occurrence of bullying in the nursing environment. Lateral bullying and lateral violence are terms used to describe bullying, uncivil behavior, disrespect, social devaluing, peer control and verbal, physical and emotional abuse occurring between nurses and or colleagues (Ceravolo et al., 2012). Abusive behaviors from a superior are considered vertical or hierarchal violence and are commonly seen when the superior attempts to control or bully the nurse using their superiority, often leaving the nurse feeling defenseless due to an imbalance in power and control (Broome & Williams-Evans, 2011). Some examples of bullying include harsh criticism, unfairly blaming others for mistakes, and withholding patient care information (Simons et al., 2011). In a recent study measuring workplace bullying, Simons, Stark and DeMarco (2011) found that the most common behaviors those feeling bullied experienced included being assigned workloads they felt were unmanageable, and being ignored or excluded by their peers.

Professionalism is a very important key in the nursing profession. It is what paints a good image for a business or, in this case, an organization, people will most likely choose the professional organization over the unprofessional, because with the nurses that are professional they have great quality in customer service. Examples being, nurses that are professional aren’t rude or disruptive, they handle business in a kindly manner, following directions and policies etc. Unprofessionalism in nursing practice continues to hinder the expansion of the field. There are many things that nurses do that are highly unprofessional at the workplace. A few major unprofessional mistakes nurses tend to do is, bullying, breaking HIPPA, and behavior. To me, these are the biggest mistakes that really pop out at me.

Civility in the work place, or the lack thereof, has been identified as a growing problem within many professions in today’s society. Often referred to as lateral violence, this occurrence is no exception in the nursing profession. It is also known as ‘horizontal violence’ or ‘workplace bullying (Coursey, Rodriguez, Dieckmann, & Austin, 2013). In this evidenced-based paper, information will be provided in an effort to identify causes of lateral violence in the workplace and how to encourage civility.

Nursing is a profession that is based on the principles of caring and ethics. For years nursing has been continuously ranked as the most trusted profession (Riffkin, 2014). Nurses advocate for patients even if it means standing up to doctors and hospital administrators. Shockingly, for a job rooted in compassion, horizontal violence is a devastatingly common occurrence in the nursing profession. Horizontal violence, or workplace bullying, is defined as repeated incidences of aggressive behaviour intended to intimidate, degrade, humiliate, and offend a person or group of people (Ontario Nursing Association, 2012). Nurse-to-nurse aggression can range from yelling, withholding information, refusing to help, undermining a fellow nurse 's work ability and threatening unnecessary disciplinary action (Rocker, 2008). In Canada, 50% of nurses reported being verbally abused and 46% experienced hostility or conflict with colleagues (Statistics Canada, 2005). While many nurses are victims of bullying, many do not report the incidents and develop poor coping strategies. When a nurse does not report a bully, they are putting their mental health at risk. Nursing programs must implement educational programs for student nurses. They rely on safe clinical placements to develop and practice essential nursing skills. However, the toxic environment that bullying creates jeopardizes not only their education but their mental health as well, spurring on ramifications that last a lifetime.

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).

Essentially, the term abuse is an issue facing the nursing profession today. Many unreported cases of encountered verbal and physical abuse have been found to be ample in acute and complex care settings. These cases are amongst professional individuals (nurse-nurse and nurse-physician abuse) and also among the patient abusing the nurses. Effectively, abuse is not only a Canadian issue. It has been reported internationally as well. Thus, many nurses today are lobbying for the decrease of abuse within health care settings in order to ameliorate the working conditions. Nursing abuse may lead to other issues which will be discussed in this study. This paper will address the nurse-nurse, nurse-physician and nurse-patient abuse. In addition,

“The first step in teaching nurses how to decrease bullying by others is to help them understand what to do and what not to do when confronted by a bully” (Rocker, 2008, Education, para. 13). Nurses need to be aware of how to recognize horizontal violence, and how to be able to stop it. Furthermore, Baltimore (2006) explained that nurses need to try and resist the temptation of participating in gossip which could ultimately result in people losing respect for nurses (p. 35). Nurses also need to be respectful and value differences among other nurses. Each nurse is unique and may have different ways of implementing his/her type of care. Therefore, it is crucial that nurses respect these differences (Rocker, 2008, Policy, para. 14). If nurses are able to be consciously aware of these small things, it can make a huge difference on how they treat other coworkers, and how others view them. Not only is it important for nurses to understand what horizontal violence is, but managers of hospitals need to be well educated of this as well. Brunt (2011) stated that managers have a key role in preventing and altering horizontal violence in the workforce. It is important that managers create an environment where staff members feel comfortable coming to the managers with concerns. Managers need to be educated about how to deal with the negativity of horizontal violence (p. 7). Managers can improve relationships, trust, and productivity and reduce tension by