Consequences of bullying

Bullying is a serious and ongoing concern against nurses. An unfortunate idiom, “nurses eat their young” is being used among nurses for over 30 years which refers to the bullying behaviour in nursing (Gillespie, Grubb, Brown, Boesch & Ulrich, 2017). Bullying is basically defined as the work-related as well as personal-related negative behaviours or emotional abuse that affects the psychological wellbeing. Many authors commonly report that existence of bullying against the nursing workforce affects their mental state which in turn contributes to the poor patient outcome (Hamm, 2017). As a result it adversely affects the reputation of the healthcare organization. The experiences of being bullied leads to multiple types of consequences such as poorer mental health, ineffective communication, decreased collaboration with fellow colleagues, reduced productivity and others.

Consequences of bullying

In a survey, where more than 4000 critical care nurses participated, it has been found that 18% nurses experienced verbal abuse from other nurses (Flateau-Lux & Gravel, 2014). According to various literatures, rates of bullying among nurses are the highest of all other healthcare related occupancies. In a cross-sectional and descriptive study on the workplace bullying it has been found that 82% of nurses experienced some form of bullying in their workplace (Smith, Gillespie, Brown & Grubb, 2016). Some authors described bullying as a contagion spreading through the nursing workforce that is affecting the future generation of nursing students and they are also adopting same bullying behaviours (Berry, Gillespie, Fisher, Gormley & Haynes, 2016). Bullying at work is not only an issue for the nurses in healthcare system but also it negatively affects and hampers its outcomes. Nurse-to-nurse bullying may contribute to the shortage of nurses and according to various literatures, both the victims and the witnesses of bullying suffer equally and silently. Some authors reported that workplace bullying is considered as major occupational problem in many countries throughout the world (Howell, 2016). In a survey of National Health Trust Committee workers, it has been identified that 38% of nurses reported they experienced bullying and at the same time 42% of the nurses confessed that they have witnessed bullying in their workplace (Mitchell, Ahmed & Szabo, 2014). A study in the United States revealed the result that 70% of victims left their job (Rocker, 2008).

Intervention to improve the condition

Bullying will grow and simultaneously, the next generation of nurses will get infected by it and they will also be involved in bullying behaviour. Due to this reason, it is extremely important to prevent emotional abuses or bullying among nurses, otherwise it will create poor patient outcome and might completely destroy the reputation as well as the productivity of the organization. In order to prevent the bullying behaviour among the nurses it is primarily important to educate them at the beginning of their nursing career. A bullying educational program can be developed in this regard for the junior as well as the senior nursing students.

Purpose of the program

Bullying is considered as one of the greatest concerns and in some cases, lack of knowledge and education also results in bullying behaviour among the nurses. The main purpose of the educational program will be to educate all the nursing students about the negative effects of bullying on their career as well as on the healthcare organizations where they are working in. It will also clearly provide them the knowledge about the adverse effects and consequences of bullying. At the same time, the program will provide some appropriate information about some specific ways of preventing the bullying in their workplace.

Intervention to improve the condition

Target population/Audience

Target population or audience is chosen in such a way so that the educational program can specifically address them and they can also get the actual benefit of it. This paper mainly focuses upon the idiom “nurses eat their young” which particularly refers to the bullying behaviour of senior nurses towards new and junior nurses within a healthcare organization. The educational program will duly address the bullying behaviour among the nurses. In this regard, all the nurses including the senior as well as the junior nurses will be the main target population or target audience of this educational program. However, bullying is highly associated with the life of other healthcare professionals as well, and so they can also be a part of this program, but the main target audience will be the nursing students only.  

Benefits of the program

It is being assumed that after the completion of the educational program, all the participants will be aware of their own duties and responsibilities against bullying and they will actively perform their duties even if they have not experienced, but witnessed bullying in their workplace.

Evaluation of the program

In this educational program, a web-based voiceover PowerPoint presentation, classroom based PowerPoint presentation, and a role play simulation will be incorporated. Apart from that, some small leaflets will be distributed at the beginning among all the participants which will provide a primary idea about the educational program. For the web-based PowerPoint presentation, 20 slides will be used along with appropriate speech for each slide. The presentation will provide an overview bullying, consequences of bullying and recommendations to mitigate bullying in the workplace. The classroom based PowerPoint presentation will be developed as a post-assessment of the web-based voiceover presentation. There will be 10 slides and each slide will contain open-ended questions and the responses will be taken from the participants. Finally, a classroom based role play simulation will be performed illustrating the lives of novice nurses, experienced nurses and the consequences of bullying in their lives.

Cost/budget justification

In order to conduct the educational program, first of all, it will be necessary to take print out of leaflets as per the number of participants. There will be requirement of projector for the PowerPoint presentation and at the same time, speech and slides will be developed. The program will consist of a role play simulation at the end. All these interventions will require a certain amount of cost to evaluate. In this regard, an approval of funding is extremely required to make the intervention successful.

Requesting feedback

Bullying is a crime and proper education can help to prevent and uproot it from the lives of nursing students. The enclosed executive summary feedback-form consists of some questions. Response to the feedback from would be highly appreciated in this regard.

References

Berry, P., Gillespie, G., Fisher, B. S., Gormley, D., & Haynes, J. (2016). Psychological distress and workplace bullying among registered nurses. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 21(3), 4. Retrieved from https://ojin.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/TableofContents/Vol-21-2016/No3-Sept-2016/Articles-Previous-Topics/Psychological-Distress-and-Workplace-Bullying.html 

Flateau-Lux, L. R., & Gravel, T. (2014). Put a stop to bullying new nurses. Home Healthcare Now, 32(4), 225-229. Retrieved from https://www.nursingcenter.com/journalarticle?Article_ID=2426123&Journal_ID=2695880&Issue_ID=2426053 

Gillespie, G. L., Grubb, P. L., Brown, K., Boesch, M. C., & Ulrich, D. (2017). “Nurses eat their young”: A novel bullying educational program for student nurses. Journal of nursing education and practice, 7(7), 11. Doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.5430%2Fjnep.v7n7P11 

Hamm, S. E. (2017). The Dark Side of Nursing Practice: Lateral Violence and Bullying Behaviors Among Nurses. The Director: Official Journal of the National Association of Directors of Nursing Administration in Long Term Care, 25(2), 2695. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/Personal/Downloads/2695-the-dark-side-of-nursing-practice-lateral-violence-and-bullying-behaviors-among-nurses.pdf 

Howell, C. J. (2016). Influencing Factors Related to Workplace Bullying Among Nurses: A Systematic Review (Doctoral dissertation, University of Alberta). Retrieved from https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/48ccf350-443e-4dd6-b0ee-c13b86b32a06/download/4382afe7-5083-4ed3-93b4-db0d9e48355c 

Mitchell, A., Ahmed, A., & Szabo, C. (2014). Workplace violence among nurses, why are we still discussing this? Literature review. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 4(4), 147. Retrieved from https://sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/jnep/article/download/3541/2416 

Rocker, C. F. (2008). Addressing nurse-to-nurse bullying to promote nurse retention. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 13(3), N_A. Retrieved from https://ojin.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/TableofContents/vol132008/No3Sept08/ArticlePreviousTopic/NursetoNurseBullying.aspx 

Smith, C. R., Gillespie, G. L., Brown, K. C., & Grubb, P. L. (2016). Seeing students squirm: nursing students’ experiences of bullying behaviors during clinical rotations. Journal of nursing education, 55(9), 505-513. Doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.3928%2F01484834-20160816-04