Educating nursing students in team conflict communication

Abstract

Interdisciplinary health care teams are pivotal in creating and organizing the comprehensive care and treatment of patients. Health care teams providing comprehensive services create an integrative approach that focuses on open communication among members. One challenge when communicating in teams is recognizing and understanding the potential for conflict. Awareness of conflict and an understanding of communication behaviors leading to more competent conflict management will create higher quality team performance. Increasing communication competence leads to more cooperative sharing of information and provides the opportunity for practiced decision-making. Understanding the team process can be strengthened by educating future health care workers, especially nursing students. In doing so, nursing students will learn and practice how to manage team conflict. To create an educational curriculum in conflict processes and management, it is necessary to understand conceptions about the conflict process. As a result, curriculum design is based on needs identified from the research. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine individual perceptions that current nursing students have about conflict, strategies individuals use for conflict resolution, and what communication strategies are perceived as being competent for health care team conflict resolution. Based in social learning theory, the final outcome is to understand expectations about team conflict behaviors to create a framework to design educational programs in conflict management for nursing programs.

Coping strategies of nursing students for dealing with stress in clinical setting: A qualitative study

“…Particularly, after enacting a general health insurance by Iran’s previous government, hospital admission has not been proportionate to the increase of nursing staff, and this resulted in nursing students undertaking most procedures. Also in Hartman’s study, most participants believed that good interpersonal communication is needed to resolve the conflict in the clinical setting ( 31 ). Also, the emerged theme in the study by O’Mara et al was “rebuilding relationship” to face communication challenges ( 32 ).…”

Speaking Up Against Hierarchy: A Simulation Geared Towards Nursing Students

“…Lastly, understanding the effectiveness of educating undergraduate nursing students in conflict management via simulations is limited, but this study provides insight that an interactive activity is more effective at preparing students before an in-person simulation experience [9,28]. Research has also indicated that introducing conflict management training in a four-year baccalaureate program provides students with early opportunities to "practice" conflict resolution skills and familiarize themselves with conflict management events [28]. Opportunities to reinforce that learning throughout the program help students build confidence to handle subsequent conflicts in the clinical domain with nurses and preceptors [9,28].…”

“…Research has also indicated that introducing conflict management training in a four-year baccalaureate program provides students with early opportunities to "practice" conflict resolution skills and familiarize themselves with conflict management events [28]. Opportunities to reinforce that learning throughout the program help students build confidence to handle subsequent conflicts in the clinical domain with nurses and preceptors [9,28]. Previous research has suggested that effective communication and collaboration reduces morbidity and mortality rates, the cost of care, and errors but improves job satisfaction and the retention of nursing staff [29].…”

Experience of Psychological Distress: A Qualitative Inquiry Into Female Nursing Students of India

“…A study found that sixty-four percentages of nursing understudies sophisticated struggles with their staff, and over fifty percentage experienced problems in the clinical setting 25 . As a result, several nursing students are experiencing negative emotional states/conditions, frustration, hurt, stress, anxiety, and anger 26 that may affect their academic and clinical performance; stress may also be related to an immunological response 27 and psychological well-being issues 28 . Above mentioned studies corroborate the results of the current study.…”