Essay On Lateral Violence In Nursing

Great post! Lateral Violence/bullying is a very good concern and topic of discussion. I’m glad that your group have chosen this topic because it truly does need change. It makes it a very sensitive topic to discuss in the workplace because of fear of losing your job, causing conflict or the repercussions that may come for speaking out. Some nurses will leave while others may stick around and accept the behavior. Whether another nurse or higher medical provider it isn’t right and is a major concern in healthcare. ANA recognizes that incivility, bullying, and violence in the workplace are serious issues in nursing. Currently, there is no federal standard that requires workplace violence protections, but several states have enacted legislation

Alexandra Robbins was writing a book about the secrets of the nursing subculture in hospitals around the United States. One surprising thing that kept coming up was the practice of hazing. Hazing is when a person is put through tests or challenges normally to humiliate her. The practice has even turned deadly in some cases. Some examples of hazing in the hospital are colleagues keeping vital information to themselves, playing favorites, name-calling, spreading rumors, and even discrediting other nurses until they quit. Nursing is the number one profession to experience some type of hazing from older or better nurses. It is getting so bad that the rate of nurses quitting due to hazing has drastically gone up in the last 30 years. In one case,

With today changes, nurses face cases such as heavy workload, lack of resources, increased patient awareness, low occupational ,various problems related to staff skills, life quality and workplace violence. In But, there is the anticipation that nurses should treat patients in an ethical manner and put ethics first in their professional performance. Across the world, nurses are guided to use professional codes that highlight their obligation to respect, protect and safeguard the essential rights of the patient involved in nursing and health care(Sharifabad

Internationally, various studies and reports have raised concern regarding hostile behaviors in the nursing workplace. Incivility in nursing is defined as rude or disruptive behaviors which often result in physiological or psychological distress for people involved and if left unaddressed, may progress into a threatening situation (Broome 2011). Although aggression and violence from patients and visitors are cause for concerns, nurses reported hostility among colleagues, managers and other professionals have been the most concern and an impact to nurses’ society. Incivility defines as “a rude or unsociable speech or behavior (Merriam 2010). The types of behaviors that constitute between nurses can be due to stress, heavy workload, bullying, harassment and aggressions. Incivility and bullying in nursing are complex problems that have garnered much attention in recent years (Felbinger 2008). Emerging evidence suggests that incivility in the workplace has significant implications from nurses, patients, and health care organizations causing a high turnover rate.

Healthcare workers suffer the most when it comes to workplace violence. Violence in the workplace can have major effects on the victim such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorders. It can also lead to many emotional behaviors such as feeling sad, angry, disgust or fear felt by the victim. These emotions can have an influence on work functioning. Violence in the healthcare work is a major issue and is constantly growing than any other work field. “Healthcare workers are 16 times more at risk of experiencing violence from patients or clients than other service workers” (Lanctôt, N., & Guay, S. 2014). The most common abuse seen in the healthcare work is verbal abuse ranging from 22 to 90%, and the least being physical assault ranging

Conflicts within the nursing profession may be seen among the different age generations, with senior nurses holding different values than new graduates. For example, there are many cases where horizontal violence and bullying occurs between senior nurses and new nurses. However, in most cases, nurse bullying results from ineffective communication (Sauer, 2012). Interprofessional conflict may occur due to the medical hierarchy and existing profession stereotypes. According to Whitehead (2007), a barrier to physician collaboration is the vision of a ‘flattened hierarchy’ where a physician’s traditional power, decision-making responsibility, and status is reduced. Although these traditional beliefs may still be held among not only physicians but also the public, IPE and IPC allow for the potential of “better communication and development of relationships between health care professions that can be valuable even within a hierarchical system” (Whitehead, 2007, p.

Workplace incivility affects our everyday interactions, professional nursing relationships and our organizations. It is important to be aware of incivility to address it. Incivility in the workplace doesn’t have to be a major event, but it may be little things daily that can make a huge impact. This affects the employee which impacts productivity and patient care. Employee turnover rates, job dissatisfaction, and poor workplace environments can be attributed to incivility. Employees may feel as though they are unable to report incivility due to retribution or loss of employment. It is time for people that need help to be courageous and speak up. Incivility in the work environment needs to stop.

A study was done to view just how much horizontal violence could affect patient safety and it was found that there was an increase in patient falls and a delay in care due to nurses not communicating to one another or not wanting to help a fellow coworker when asked

Since starting the LPN program, I have seen some unprofessional actions presented by some of the facilities. For example, we were visiting Life Care Center South Hill a few weeks ago and arrived at 5 AM and was expected to be on the floor by 6 AM for the shift exchange and report. However, more than a handful of the nurses, including the aids were at least 15 minutes late for their shift almost every single day that we were there. Patient’s call lights were going off and been left unanswered due to the night shift had already “signed off” from their shift. On top of it, two aids argued with each other very loudly I might add, in front of everyone. I saw this as very unprofessional because regardless of the issues that we have with other coworkers, they should be taken with each other in a private manner and if it does not get resolved, then it should be taken to the next higher up position such as the nursing supervisor. Punctuality is just one of the key components in professionalism.

Violence against healthcare providers is a significant problem that has been receiving growing attention. Incidents of workplace violence are experienced by nurses and physicians on a day-to-day basis, especially in emergency departments. The corollary of this phenomenon has become a significant matter due to the psychological stress it is placing on healthcare providers, hence affecting their efficiency and productivity. We may often undermine the consequences of workplace violence, but studies show that it may cause distress, apathy, rage, disappointment, helplessness, anxiety, self-doubt, and insecurity of healthcare workers. (Öztunç 360-365)Hence, their entire job performance is decreased and absenteeism is increased. This results in

Organizational readiness for improvement or change in health care settings is vital for the successful implementation of new programs and health care practices (Hall & Roussell, 2014). After detailed conversations with the unit manager and registered nurses, it is clear there is a need for interventions targeted toward patient-to-patient assaults, as safety is a top priority for the patients in the unit. In addition, staff members state that there has been an increase in the number of patient-to-patient assaults in the inpatient psychiatric unit (2–3 incidents per month), and this poses a threat to staff and patient safety. In Hall and Roussel (2014), states that healthcare facilities must be viewed as a high-risk environment and available financial and human resources must be available to address safety issues and concerns (Wieczorek, Marent, Osrecki, Dorner, & Dür, 2015). The unit manager volunteered to provide assistance for the implementation of the program and worked with the doctoral student on scheduling a presentation of education/teaching interventions for staff members. Lastly, the unit manager provided a large conference room within the unit to use for teaching the registered

I worked as a Nurse’s Assistant and Secretary for 8 years. I started when I was 18 years old, working on a psychiatric unit. I learned to be mindful of my surroundings and to read people’s emotions and body language to prevent escalating a patient’s bad mood into a physical altercation. This may seem like an extreme example, but I have witnessed people that were unaware, or didn’t care how they approached the patient, and the patient responded in a belligerent manor.

‘Nurses have long suffered from stereotyping. Painted as everything from the naughty nurse, to the battle axe matron or the angel in a crisis they have seen it all. These stereotypes may seem like harmless fun, but they are patronizing, undermine the public image of nurses and call into question their professional

Police and prosecutors tend to downplay the violent assaults on health care workers unless someone is severely injured, even though 30 states have felony laws against it (Jacobson, 2014, p. 4). According to a descriptive study conducted by Lisa Wolf there were many instances in, which the legal, judicial system was unwilling to pursue charges against patients, or family members who assaulted nurses. Thus the focus on legislation to make an assault on health care workers a felony crime may have limited efficacy unless efforts are made to address society’s complacency toward violence against nurses (Wolf et al., 2014, p. 3).

“While working at a hospital as a Registered nurse, I was being bullied every day at work I became withdrawn, severely depressed, I would break down and cry every day after work. It was a nightmare,” explained Nurse Jackie. Horizontal bullying should not be neglected it is a life-threatening problem affecting the healthcare. Nurse to nurse bullying in the workplace can have an impact on new nurses, the treatment of the patients, and lack of job satisfaction.