Registered Nurses’ Experiences With Incivility During the Early Phase of COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of a Multi-State Survey

Abstract

Background: Incivility among workers in the health sector is recognized as an occupational hazard. The COVID-19 outbreak brought sudden and profound changes to many health care settings, many of which have been identified as antecedents to workplace incivility. The purpose of this retrospective study was to explore the experiences of registered nurses with workplace incivility, cyber-incivility, and incivility outside of work during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This mixed-methods study used convenience sampling. Data were collected from June to September 2020 via an online survey, which consisted of both closed- and open-ended questions. Participants were recruited from national nursing organizations and unions. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis for open-ended responses. Findings: A total of 526 nurses’ responses were included in the analysis. More than one third experienced greater incivility at work during the COVID-19 outbreak than before the pandemic (37.4%), and almost half (45.7%) said they witnessed more incivility than before the pandemic. Cyber-incivility and incivility outside of work were also issues. Qualitative results indicated that respondents felt they were on edge during this period. Other themes included leadership failure, fractured co-worker relationships, heightened incivility from patients and families, and hostility and ostracism from the general public Conclusion/Application to practice: Occupational health nurses, nursing leaders, and staff nurses need to work to restore relations that were fractured by incivility during the pandemic. In the future, improved preparedness, including establishing clear channels of communication, may lessen incivility by decreasing role stress and organizational chaos.

The lived experience of frontline nurses: COVID‐19 in rural America

“…Anonymity is rare in most rural settings. Yet, consistent with a survey of nurses that described leadership as “absent” during the pandemic, 37 some rural nurses in this study perceived similar abandonment by their leaders. Giving voice to real time frontline RN experiences, and being heard by leaders, was critically important in this study, and others 21,22,33,35,36 .…”

“…Acerbic misinformation on social media contributed to “cyber‐incivility” experienced by rural nurses and common during the pandemic. According to a multistate mixed methods study, 43% of nurses experienced cyber‐incivility during the early phase of COVID‐19 pandemic 37 . In this study, rural nurses described a sense of professional and personal hurt and insult from social media.…”

“…According to a multistate mixed methods study, 43% of nurses experienced cyber‐incivility during the early phase of COVID‐19 pandemic. 37 In this study, rural nurses described a sense of professional and personal hurt and insult from social media.…”

The COVID-19 Pandemic Increased Burnout and Bullying among Newly Graduated Nurses but Did Not Impact the Relationship between Burnout and Bullying and Self-Labelled Subjective Feeling of Being Bullied: A Cross-Sectional, Comparative Study

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Job experience as a buffer against incivility: a daily diary study

“…Secondly, in addition to occupational hazards such as exposure to infectious disease, nurses are faced with negative interpersonal interactions at a rate higher than most other professions; in fact, estimates suggest that 96.4% of nurses have been spoken to in a verbally aggressive manner (Rowe and Sherlock, 2005). Though there is limited empirical work on nursing incivility within the COVID-19 pandemic specifically (see El Ghaziri et al. , 2021), it can be inferred from past work that the negative individual and situational factors associated with the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g.…”