Conflict management styles used by nurse managers in the Sultanate of Oman

Abstract

Conflict can affect patient care if handled badly. Poorly handled conflict results in lower staff morale and poorer retention, both adversely affect patient care.

Conflict Management Styles Among Iranian Critical Care Nursing Staff

“…19 This style emphasizes quick, mutually acceptable decisions that somehow satisfy both parties. 9 Our study showed that male nurses had higher scores of compromising style than did their female colleagues, which is in line with the results of the studies of Al-Hamdan et al 9 and Chan et al 13 This difference in conflict management approaches among male and female nurses confirms the socializing effects of gender role expectations in Iran. For instance, men are generally expected to develop masculine …”

“…Assertiveness and cooperation are involved in the collaboration style. 9,11 Those who use accommodating style face conflicts passively and follow the decisions of other parties. They show low concern for themselves and high concern for others and tend to accept the other party's purpose.…”

“…[6][7][8] Unresolved or poorly managed conflicts have negative influences on individuals, organizations, and, most importantly, patient outcomes. 9 The result of a multicenter and international study showed that more than 70% of intensive care unit (ICU) staff perceived at least 1 professional conflict over the last working week, which was severe, and associated with job strain, and consequently decreased the quality of their care and affected the patient survival. 5 Considering that the nurses are the largest group of health care professionals in critical care units 10 and high level of conflict occurrence among them, nurse managers need to assess how these conflicts are dealt with, in an effort to develop and implement efficient conflict resolution strategies.…”

“…Also, findings suggest that gender was a significant predictor for both compromising and competing styles. The result of a study by Al-Hamdan et al, 9 aimed at examining the Omani nurse managers' conflict management styles, showed that the dominant conflict management style was collaborating, after compromising, accommodating, competing, and avoiding. Also, the study demonstrated that men were more likely to use compromising style than women.…”

Self-reported conflict management competence among nursing students on the point of graduating and registered nurses with professional experience

“…As mentioned, RNs predominantly use an integrating conflict management style, which can be interpreted as constructive conflict management in that it might indicate awareness of the context. [22,23] As the participants in this study rated their conflict management competence as high, this can be understood as using an integrating conflict management style. This is also confirmed by the fact that RNs who used their expertise in CMC had higher self-reported CMC than those who did not use such competence.…”