Essay on Intimidation of Nurses in the Workplace

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

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

Typically, when someone thinks of a bully, childhood memories of scuffles on the playground come to mind. Bullies are not usually people that are associated with adult life. However, nursing has changed this stereotypical view. For many nurses, bullying may be as great a threat every day at work as it was when they were in grade school. This threat is because of what is termed as horizontal or lateral violence in the workplace, and it is a surprisingly, prominent issue in the field of nursing. Furthermore, horizontal violence is a detrimental problem in nursing due to its damaging and negative effects on nurses and the nursing profession as a whole.

To the public eye, hospitals and nurses are there for them and their work environment seems like one that would promote growth in the work place, but the public doesn’t see what happens behind the curtain at these hospitals. Bullying can be in every company, but the public never really sees it happening just the employees that work there. The definition of bullying according to Terri Townsend, who wrote “Break the bullying cycle”, states that “[b]ullying is defined as repeated, offensive, abusive, intimidating, or insulting behaviors; abuse of power; or unfair sanctions that make recipients feel humiliated, vulnerable, or threatened, thus creating stress and undermining their self-confidence” (Townsend). This bullying greatly affects the employees and makes the work place environment suffer. By using Bruno Bettelheim’s essay “The Ignored Lesson of Anne Frank”, as a reference to compare why these employees put up with what happens to them at work. A very common everyday example where work place bullying/dehumanization happens would be the employees of McDonalds in Barbara Garson’s essay “McDonald’s – We Do It All for You”, which shows what these employees put up with on a daily basis. There is a huge difference in work places from that of a hospital to that of McDonald’s, but the question is why do these employees put up with the abuse? Hospital employees are also scared to stand up to their supervisors, because they don’t want to face the possible consequences that would

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

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.

At the same time, workplace incivility happens between colleagues and between manager and subordinates, it is happening almost every day in healthcare settings such as in hospital and clinics where workers are directly uncivil to disrespect each other. For instance, when a nurse is deviant or does not follow the supervisor intensely because of differences in opinion or an act of retaliation when the manager is being rude, treating their staff with rough words, discourtesy, and lack respect to his staff, there are also times when the uncivil behavior is not intentional or

Nurses are more likely to make errors in caring for their patients when they do not have the appropriate support from their coworkers. The demeaning behavior causes the person being bullied not to ask questions or seek assistance when they are unsure of a task. This leads to making assumptions in the care of the patient and unfortunately

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

Implementation of this intervention in other rural nursing settings may assist nurses in cultivating greater confidence in their ability to recognize and respond to workplace incivility (Armstrong,

Lateral violence also known as horizontal violence, incivility, or bullying has been a phenomenon researched for over three decades according to nursing researchers. This paper aims to discuss the impact that lateral violence has on the work environment, teamwork, self esteem, and patient care. Lateral violence is a phenomenon that has negative implications on the nursing profession due to the fact it can be avoided but still occurs. Lateral violence has been defined as any unwanted abuse or hostility within the workplace and “nurses covertly or overtly directing their dissatisfaction inward towards each other, towards themselves, and toward those less powerful than themselves (Griffin, 2004, p. 257), as quoted by (Roberts, 2014, p.36). According to Sanner-Steieh and Ward-Smith (2014) “lateral violence may be verbal consisting of persistent criticism, gossiping, yelling or berating; or nonverbal consisting of behaviors of undermining, sabotaging, clique formation, failure to respect privacy or confidences, and assigning unmanageable workloads”. Lateral violence has negative implications that directly affect patient care because it creates high incidents of nurse turn-over which results in hospitals often being short staffed, the nurses on shift work longer hours with bigger caseloads, and the patient’s are the ones who experience an unsatisfactory quality of care. Studies estimate that 44% to 85% of nurses are victims of lateral violence and up to 93% of nurses report

Bullying is a serious problem in the nursing profession, it decreases nurse productivity, creates adverse patient outcomes, and overall lack of job satisfaction. It can be seen anywhere in the nursing profession. Bullying includes emotional and physical abuse as well as, putting others down, intimidation, spreading rumors, etc. “Research findings suggest that bullying frequently occurs among RNs [6] to the extent that up to 40% of nurses report an intent to leave because of it [7]; this is significant especially for new nurses, in that new RNs reported being bullied at work which resulted in 30% of

Several models and concepts arose in preventative measures to workplace violence in nursing. One conceptual model, according to Covert Crime at Work, is “a conceptual model derived from 370 surveys show working conditions conducive to bullying, thus helping to identify risks early and to prevent unhealthy environments from developing.” After recognition of these research and studies, organizations such as Occupations Safety and Hazard Association, American Nurses Associations, and etc, have implemented guidelines to prevent workplace violence in nursing.

Bullying is a serious issue that frequently happens during a nursing shortage. Since hospitals need to recruit new nurses when their nurses left. Therefore, new nurses are usually the target of bullying by the old nurses. Accordingly, bullying can cause even more burdens to the challenges that the novice nurses or new nurses have to face on the daily basis. As the findings in this research, the bullying acts may be on personal attack, competence or work tasks. And the consequences of this issue can cause diminished self-esteem, distress that lead to physical and emotional damages for these nurses; that is why more nurses want to leave their job because of job dissatisfaction, or else, they will put their patients' safety in danger (Olender,