Bullying in the Workplace—A Qualitative Study of Newly Licensed Registered Nurses

Abstract

Bullying in the workplace is associated with negative job satisfaction and retention. It has also been found to have adverse effects on the health of employees. Using a qualitative descriptive design, this study examined the stories of bullying among nurses based on actual or witnessed experiences. One hundred eighty-four newly licensed U.S. nurses responded to an open-ended question on a survey about bullying mailed to their homes. Four major themes emerged that related to varying types of bullying behaviors, perceived causes of bullying, and the impact of bullying behaviors. The themes included structural bullying; nurses "eating their young"; being out of the clique; and leaving the job. Bullying is experienced firsthand and secondhand by nurses, and particularly by vulnerable, newly graduated nurses. Workplace bullying must be explored fully to develop effective strategies to eliminate it.

Making Things Right: Nurses' Experiences with Workplace Bullying—A Grounded Theory

“…Bullying in the workplace runs counter to the espoused ethical values of health care organizations and must be challenged by managers and front-line nurses who we have been called “upstanders” in this study. To do less than this perpetuates the culture of mistreatment, as confirmed in this study and others [53]. …”

Hostile clinician behaviours in the nursing work environment and implications for patient care: a mixed-methods systematic review

“…In three survey studies [19,31,38] and two qualitative studies [20,32] nurse-to-nurse hostility was reported to result in individuals feeling overwhelmed, unable to ask for help, feeling out of their depth with patient situations, fearful of making errors or causing harm, and unable to trust. The tendency to ignore requests for assistance from colleagues, especially in situations where assistance was needed to ensure patient safety or to respond to complex or demanding clinical situations was reported by respondents in four survey studies [19,31,38,42] and three qualitative studies [20,32,41].…”

“…The tendency to ignore requests for assistance from colleagues, especially in situations where assistance was needed to ensure patient safety or to respond to complex or demanding clinical situations was reported by respondents in four survey studies [19,31,38,42] and three qualitative studies [20,32,41]. …”

“Nurses eat their young”: A novel bullying educational program for student nurses

“…The consequences of bullying include nurses reporting poorer mental health, decreased collaboration with team members, ineffective communication, reduced work productivity, and poor job commitment. [5,12,14,16–22] These consequences ultimately affected the care nurses delivered to their patients including decreased quality of care, medication errors, and patient death. [23–27] Bullying among nurses previously garnered such national recognition The Joint Commission [28] issued a Sentinel Event Alert requiring all accredited hospitals to develop a code of conduct and implement processes to manage bullying.…”