Creating Respectful Workplaces for Nurses in Regional Acute Care Settings: Protocol for a Sequential Explanatory Mixed Methods Study (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND Negative workplace behaviour among nurses is an internationally recognised problem, despite the plethora of literature spanning several decades. The various forms of mistreatments and uncaring attitudes experienced by nurses include workplace aggression, incivility, bullying, harassment and horizontal violence. Negative behaviour has detrimental effects on the individual nurse, the organisation, the nursing profession and patients. Multi-level organisational interventions are warranted to influence the ‘civility norms’ of the nursing profession. OBJECTIVE The research protocol is described for this study, the aim of which is to evaluate the effectiveness of an interventional education program on creating respectful workplaces for nurses in regional acute care settings. METHODS This study employs a sequential explanatory mixed methods design, underpinned by Social World’s Theory. The study will be carried out in four acute care regional hospitals from a local health district in New South Wales, Australia. The nurse unit managers, registered nurses and new graduate nurses from the medical and surgical wards of all of the hospitals will be invited to complete a pre-survey examining their perceptions and responses to negative workplace behaviour, and their ways of coping when exposed. The participants at intervention hospitals will then be invited to attend a face-to-face educational workshop designed to increase awareness of negative workplace behaviour, the pathways to seek assistance and aims to create respectful workplaces. The follow up post-survey will be undertaken at all four hospitals 3 to 4 months after the intervention. Participants from both intervention and control sites will then be invited to participate in a face-to-face interview from 6 months post-intervention to enlighten the quantitative findings and give participants a voice. RESULTS Results of the post-intervention survey will be compared with pre-intervention findings using appropriate statistical techniques for the quantitative part of the study. In addition, the results of the qualitative interviews will be analysed to derive related key concepts that are grounded in the data. CONCLUSIONS This research will extend the body of knowledge about negative workplace behaviours and the extent to which an intervention has an effect on nurses, ultimately creating respectful workplaces. Consequently, the findings will have implications for the nursing profession, nursing practice and future policy development. CLINICALTRIAL The trial registration number is ACTRN12618002007213. This study is ongoing and was registered retrospectively with registration date 14.12.2018.