Incivility is a workplace problem that refers to the use of abusive words, intimidation or insult that is directed towards a person. The practice affects the learning process or practicing environment. Notably, it is associated with bullying, harassment or violence by one party to another. Incivility, thus; at the place of work; has become a complex phenomenon and point of concern because it consists of harmful actions. Failure to intervene in such actions makes incivility to be more severe, therefore rendering the place of work unsafe. Incivility has become more rampant in the nursing fraternity where it affects the nursing specialty and continuing nursing students (Abdollahzadeh et al., 2017). Actions of incivility can be followed by retaliation or silence by the patient because of the belief that nothing will change. Workplace violence, moreover, is perpetuated by people who witness but fail to acknowledge its existence, failure to report such incidences or ignoring. Addressing the issue of incivility in the different sections of the paper including importance to nursing, storytelling, creating a healthful environment, practice application, and conclusion is essential in nursing as it aids in the development of healthy working environments.
Importance to Nursing
Incivility has significant negative mental and physical impact on individual nurses. Nurses subjected to incivility by their coworkers and patients demonstrate emotional symptoms of stress, exhaustion, anxiety, anger, sleeplessness, embarrassment, depression, rejection, and rage (American Nurses Association, 2015). On the other hand, the physical impact of uncivility includes high blood pressure, fatigue, insomnia, headaches, and stomach problems. Notably, nurses are often the target of incivility, and the behavior lowers their self-esteem in the long run. Management’s failure to tackle uncivility leads to the accumulation of uncivil behavior and it gradually begins to affect the work environment.
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The negative impact of incivility on the microsystem work environment is equally devastating. Uncivil behavior creates an unfavorable working environment that results in the emergence of conflict among nurses. As the psychological and physical impact of incivility intensifies, the rate of job satisfaction reduces and nurses’ productivity reduces. Moreover, incivility reduces organizational loyalty and commitment (Marriot, 2017). The cumulative impact of incivility in organizations is high absenteeism and nurses’ turnover-the loss of productive employees eliminates critical competitive advantage of institutions.
Incivility has a detrimental impact on the nursing profession. Nurses opt or plan to leave the nursing profession within the first year of work due to incivility. Notably, the high turnover of new nurses is responsible for the acute staff shortage in the healthcare sector and high medical costs (Klima, 2014). Besides, incivility interferes with nurses’ motivation levels, thus the provision of substandard care to patients. Therefore, incivility destroys the reputation of the nursing profession.
Storytelling
Mary who was a fresh graduate nurse was hired by Rescue Home to work in the emergency department. Just other new nurses, Mary felt incompetent due to her lack of experience and she was afraid of making mistakes. However, Mary was hopeful that her coworkers who were more experienced would help her acquire the necessary skills to become successful. Mary was highly passionate with her work and was optimistic about her new job.
There is a high prevalence of incivility towards graduate nurses. Mary was subjected to various forms of nursing incivility from her colleagues including verbal attacks on her performance, intimidation from experienced nurses, continual criticism, silent treatment, and putdown among other behaviors. After sometime the uncivil behavior began affecting Mary’s physical stress and mental health. Mary felt constantly on edge around her coworkers, she became afraid of asking for advice and assistance from other people. Moreover, Mary bean to doubt her capabilities and the lack of appreciating affected her self-confidence. Mary’s physical health began to suffer as she experienced sleepless nights, weight loss, and headaches.
Although the nursing manager was aware of the ongoing incivility towards Mary, she did not take appropriate steps to manage the problem. Mary began falling into depression, and it took the intervention of her family and close friends to help her with her emotional problem. Mary considered leaving her job, but was afraid of losing her income. Therefore, Mary was forced to stay on in her job, but her passion to help others had significantly reduced. Mary focused on her task and did not go the extra length to help patients because she was afraid of criticism. As a result of the unfavorable working environment, Mary’s job satisfaction and organizational loyalty declined. Besides, Mary began looking for new employment opportunities before resigning from her job. Undoubtedly, Mary’s turnover would increase the hospital’s hiring cost.
Creating a Healthful Environment
Promoting of civility plays an integral part in creating a culture of respect. Fostering of respect supports quality and safe care delivery that reduces incivility, violence, and bullying. Respect is supposed to be demonstrated in various segments of nursing education and practice (Warrner et al., 2016). The culture of respect can be promoted by putting in place open communication to allow nurses to develop shared goals thus remain committed to accomplishing them.
The development of policies and code of conduct assist in creating a healthy workplace. The law of conduct will assist in prescribing the required behavior and actions at the place of work (Abdollahzadeh et al., 2017). Also, the code is supposed to address all the employees and nonemployees in the institution to ensure that each party is protected. The code will be applied in all the situations to ensure that it is effective. Organizational leadership, notably, plays an integral part in modeling and reinforcing civility by making sure that the policies are adhered to. Nurses’ leaders are required to set the tone and expectations for all levels of interactions that take place at the workplace.
Besides, education is critical in creating awareness about incivility. Educating nurses on ways of improving social interaction and equipping them with positive people skills assists in creating a healthful working environment. The establishing of awareness will help some people to develop self-awareness and realize that they are exhibiting uncivil behavior (Clark, 2016). A nurse education program is supposed to incorporate incivility topics to allow nursing students to be in a position to handle disrespectful behaviors more suitably.
Practice Application
Cultivating a healthy work environment is vital in the family nurse practitioner (FNP) clinical practice. Foremost, it is important to create a clear communication plan to facilitate sharing of valuable information and concerns facing nurses (Wei, Sewell, Woody, & Rose, 2018). The communication strategy will help nurses to raise issues of incivility and allow the management to handle the problem before they escalate to uncontrollable levels. Therefore, communication should be a core unit in MSN training to help nurses acquire and use the best communication strategies.
Promotion of team collaboration should also be integrated in FNP practice to create civil relations among nurses. A team refers to a group of people working closely together for the achievement of a specific objective. Team collaboration helps in the creation of respectable and cordial relationship among all the individuals in the organization through regular meetings and discussions on critical issues. Involving of nurses, clients and people in the discussions of incivility will assist in reducing such cases or incidences (Abdollahzadeh et al., 2017). The practice will help in reducing conflicts and violence at the place of work by ensuring that each person is up to date with the latest changes in workplace policies. Therefore, incidences of incivility will be reduced because each person will be aware of what is expected from him or her.
Conclusion
In conclusion, incivility in nursing is an important phenomenon that requires critical attention. Nurses are disturbed because they have to endure negative behaviors from fellow nurses or patients. Incivility affects the level of job satisfaction thus leading to reduced productivity and employee retention level of FNP. The strategies for creating a healthy working environment are education, development of a code of conduct, and respect among workers. The implementing of these strategies in FNP requires the creation of open communication in the organization and promotion of team collaboration. The above discussion shows the incivility problem facing the nursing profession particularly new graduates like Mary in the story. The proposed strategies are useful in solving the incivility problem, and will help hospitals to prevent the emergence of the same problems in future.
I have gained a lot insight about incivility in nursing during the completion of this assignment. I have witnessed many cases of nurses’ incivility, where junior nurses are reprimanded by their seniors in public but I have never thought about the potential implication of such behavior on nurses’ wellbeing. However, from Mary’s experience I learnt that incivility creates a stressful working environment that negatively affects the nurses’ mental health that pushes them into depression. What was more shocking is managers’ failure to address incivility and nurses continuous exposure to unfavorable working environment. I have realized that if drastic management changes are not introduced in the nursing profession, incivility will be its downfall.
References
Abdollahzadeh, F., Asghari, E., Ebrahimi, H., Rahmani, A., & Vahidi, M. (2017). How to prevent workplace incivility?: Nurses' perspective. Iranian journal of nursing and midwifery research , 22 (2), 157.
American Nurses Association. (2015). American Nurses Association’s position statement on incivility, bullying, and workplace violence. Silver Springs, MD: American Nurses Association .
Clark, C. (2016). Principled leadership and the imperative for workplace civility. Retrieved from https://www.americannursetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/ant11-Leadership-1021-copy.pdf
Clark, C. (2016). Principled leadership and the imperative for workplace civility. Retrieved from https://www.americannursetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/ant11-Leadership-1021-copy.pdf
Klima, M. A. (2014). Factors contributing to incivility in long-term care: The negative effects on job satisfaction among nursing assistants (Doctoral dissertation, Capella University).
Warrner, J., Sommers, K., Zappa, M., & Thornlow, D. K. (2016). Decreasing workplace incivility. Nursing management , 47 (1), 22-30.
Wei, H., Sewell, K. A., Woody, G., & Rose, M. A. (2018). The state of the science of nurse work environments in the United States: A systematic review. International Journal of Nursing Sciences .
Willhaus, J. Cynthia M. Clark PhD, RN, ANEF, FAAN. evaluation , 10 (8), 425-431.
