Nurses are at a risk of facing significant job-related violence. Violence involves the physical or threatening acts directed to an individual at work or when they are on duty. Other forms of violence include verbal abuse, sexual harassment or discrimination concerning race. Thus, the implementation of violence prevention strategies provides an environment that is safe for work. Nursing leaders spend most of their time resolving the conflicts caused by workplace violence. Thus, it is essential for nurse leaders adopt to the best ways of resolving conflicts constructively. A nurse leader can share the code of conduct with the individuals involved in cases such as bullying and make it available to all the staff. Another challenge that might arise is the difference in the working styles and communication approaches for the different individuals the nurse leader are dealing with. Thus, it forces the nurse leader to become patient and effective when managing the different individuals with different personalities. Thus, the leader should implement monitoring opportunities between the nurses and the different ages and skills. Due to the complexity and skills requirements for resolving workplace violence, the nursing leaders opt to implement solutions and quality and safety education for nurses to strengthen their solutions.
The issues of incivility, violence and bullying are increasing at a high rate in the nursing profession. Therefore, through education activities, the individuals affected are provided with a platform to raise awareness of the issues, and it improves the ability to minimize the overall incivility frequency (Logan & Michael, 2018). Incivility is associated with rude and disruptive behaviour that contributes to the individuals’ psychological distress. When it is not addressed, it might contribute to a threatening situation. In a healthcare setting, incivility can result in life-threatening mistakes or even harm the patient. Thus it is essential for the nursing leaders and all the members in the nursing profession to create awareness on the importance of allowing civility to protect and promote the safety of the patient.
When individuals enter a nursing program for the first time, they have less experience and knowledge about becoming safe and proficient nurses in the nursing profession. Thus, the lack of knowledge and experience may contribute to the unclear perception of how individuals should behave in a nursing profession (Clark & Dunham, 2020). The stress that they experience through the conflicted encounters might create worrisome incivility cycles, which negatively affects the safety of the patient and cause vulnerability which contributes to the exits from the program by the nurses. The incivility in the work environment has resulted in job dissatisfaction for many individuals.
To prevent and address the issues, the nurse educators have implemented a fundamental responsibility to educate students on professionalism importance, effective communication and civility throughout their program in nursing (Abd-Elrhaman & Ghoneimy, 2019). The educators have developed a virtual civility mentor learning experience that educates the nursing students about the incivility consequences, how to develop the necessary skills to gain civility, have assertive communication and address encounters that lack civility both at health care the academic environments (Clark & Dunham, 2020). The civility mentor uses one-screen simulations to demonstrate the role of a nurse professional and the importance of collaboration as an inter-professional health care team member. Various peer-to-peer, student-to-preceptor, nurse-to-charge nurse and other simulations are created to develop the skills of the nursing students and their confidence as they learn, practice and apply the techniques in negotiating conflict, proper communication, management of stress, professional and ethical practice.
Civility mentor is an online platform that allows students to interact with virtual humans that are emotionally responsive in each simulation (Clark & Dunham, 2020). The virtual coach is created in software that provides immediate feedback to assist the students in getting aware of their communication style that might impact others and suggests ways of improving the conflicted interactions. The learning experience is formulated to promote empathy and take the perspective of the patient-centred care, defining the ethical obligations of the nurses, provision of skill improvement for effective communication and construction of conflict management to address the conflicted situations and provide an understanding of the necessary professional conduct for academic and work environment (Clark & Dunham, 2020). Examples of effective communication techniques include using open-ended questions, having appreciative inquiries, principled negotiations, and evidence-based approaches to create respectful responses that address uncivil encounters. The modules of a civil mentor have been sequentially applied throughout the nursing curriculum or utilized independently in various ways, such as the orientation of the students, nursing leadership and management course and the behavioural health courses (Abd-Elrhaman & Ghoneimy, 2019). They are assigned at the beginning of the nursing program and reassigned again after obtaining clinical experience. The module is also used to prepare clinical practices or as an independent study content.
Increasing teamwork and collaboration through asynchronous educational activity can reduce the incivility and bullying that nurses face. The educators can encourage attendance by creating engaging lessons and exciting team activities, which makes the students always desire to attend the classes (Howard & Embree, n.d). It is essential for nursing professionals and the civility modules educators to provide an environment that opens teaching of the importance of collaboration and teamwork. It is important that such training be availed for all employees in the healthcare environment, which enables the concept of calculating the entire institution (Itzkovich, Alt & Dolev, 2020). The ability of the nurses to have a preparedness feeling for their job is influenced by the determined extent to which teamwork training is applied in professional development (Howard & Embree, n.d). The incivility thought is reduced when there is a strong team. Concrete strategies for developing the effectiveness of teams are used to address the incivility at the workplace and the consequences of such behaviours, which are subsequent in most cases.
Moreover, the leaders need to generate ideas on how to teach nurses the virtual civil mentor program to engage in effective teamwork. Particularly, ideas need to be created on how to participate in effective teamwork and communication to acquire strong leadership and maintain high trust levels that help reduce potential workplace incivility (Itzkovich, Alt & Dolev, 2020). Through providing emphasis on teamwork, maintaining focus on the essential team variables and ensuring effectiveness in the training programs, the incivility at the workplace will reduce, and the nurses will be equipped better for the effective management of their high demand career hence resulting in high-performance teams whose aim is the provision of high-quality health care. The civil mentor should educate about collaboration and teamwork. Knowing how to promote teamwork will play a significant role in addressing the impact of bullying in healthcare settings. Determining the role of a team is essential for identifying the potential solutions to bullying in a team context. Teamwork provides a platform for sharing the power of decision making among the group members, which will provide an equal contribution to the energy required for the proper functioning of the team (Itzkovich, Alt & Dolev, 2020). The availability of team characteristics such as communication, leadership, cooperation, balanced participation and conflict resolution contributes to reduced bullying. Other characteristics of teamwork and collaboration that reduce incivility include trust, clarity of an individual’s role, equality in power and giving or receiving input.
In conclusion, incivility is associated with rude and disruptive behaviour that contributes to the individuals’ psychological distress. When it is not addressed, it might contribute to a threatening situation. It is essential for the nursing leaders and all the members of the nursing profession to create awareness of the importance of allowing civility. Incivility in the work environment has resulted in job dissatisfaction for many individuals. The nurse educators have implemented a fundamental responsibility to educate students on professionalism importance, effective communication and civility throughout their program in nursing. The educators have developed a virtual civility mentor learning experience that educates the nursing students about the incivility consequences. Increasing teamwork and collaboration through asynchronous educational activity can reduce the incivility and bullying that nurses face. The incivility thought is reduced when there is a strong team. Concrete strategies for developing the effectiveness of teams are used to address the incivility at the workplace. Teamwork provides a platform for sharing the power of decision making among the group members, which will provide an equal contribution to the energy required for the proper functioning of the team.
References
Abd-Elrhaman, E. S. A., & Ghoneimy, A. G. H. (2019). Effectiveness of Educational Program Regarding Professional Nursing Ethics on Workplace Civility. International Journal of Nursing Didactics, 9(02), 13-22.
Clark, C. M., & Dunham, M. (2020). Civility mentor: A virtual learning experience. Nurse educator, 45(4), 189.
Howard, M. S., & Embree, J. L. Increasing Teamwork and Collaboration Through an Asynchronous Educational Activity.
Itzkovich, Y., Alt, D., & Dolev, N. (2020). Emotional Intelligence as a Remedy for Academic Incivility. In The Challenges of Academic Incivility (pp. 93-107). Springer, Cham.
Logan, T. R., & Michael Malone, D. (2018). Nurses’ perceptions of teamwork and workplace bullying. Journal of nursing management, 26(4), 411-419.
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