Factors counteracting nurses' bullying in healthcare organizations: An applied study in King Abdul-Aziz University Hospital in Jeddah Province

Abstract

In a time of diminishing human resources in the field of healthcare, bullying among nursing staff is a challenge that has a negative effect on the individual nurse, work team, patient care, and consequently, on the entire healthcare organization. This study aims to investigate the presence of policy that addresses bullying, nurses' knowledge and skills in dealing with bullying behaviour, and the role of nursing managers in counteracting bullying among nurses in the workplace. A quantitative descriptive study utilizing self-administered questionnaires was undertaken. The key results to come out from this study show that the presence of workplace code of ethics policies to address bullying behaviours and the role of nursing managers do not contribute to counteracting bullying among nurses in the selected hospital. However, nurses indicated the significance of knowledge and skills in counteracting bullying. The study conclusions contribute a number of findings of importance to the field of nursing management. The study disclosed significant correlations between the healthcare organization's bullying behaviours policy, managers' roles, and nurses' knowledge and skills in counteracting bullying. Nurses' workplace bullying behaviours can be managed and eradicated by means of the collaboration of the three parties: nurse managers, policy, and nurses' knowledge and skills. This study has considerable implications for nursing management in counteracting bullying among nurses. Managers have a fundamental role in counteracting bullying, for example by setting policy and conducting organization-wide surveys to study nurses' job satisfaction, therefore, recommendations include mandatory peer reviews as part of an annual appraisal for each nurse, the initiation of a formal system to report behavioural issues among healthcare staff and the establishment of a committee to respond to, and deal with, behavioural issues among the organization's staff.

The Prevalence and The Relationship of Workplace Bullying and Nurses Turnover Intentions: A Cross Sectional Study

“…Regardless the aetiology of bullying behaviors, Albishi and Alsharqi (2018) emphasized that nurse managers can play an essential role in counteracting bullying, as they concluded that most bullying behaviors can be prevented if staff nurses are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to face workplace bullying.…”

Organizational determinants of bullying and work disengagement among hospital nurses

“…Both psychological safety and competence development had protective effects on nurse disengagement from the workplace due to bullying, although psychological safety was the stronger factor. Previous studies have identified knowledge and skills about bullying as important for reducing nurse bullying (Albishi & Alsharqi, ; Logan & Malone, ). However, the competence development measure in our study concerned opportunities for developing professionally in one's work and using one's competence.…”

“…In the United States, bullying has been described as endemic to the nursing profession (Workplace Bullying Institute, 2013). Yet the literature reveals that bullying among nurses is an international problem, with studies from Australia (Hutchinson, Vickers, Jackson, & Wilkes, 2006), Canada (Laschinger, Leiter, Day, & Gilin, 2009), Italy (Viotti, Arnetz, & Converso, 2018), Norway (Olsen, Bjaalid, & Mikkelsen, 2017), Pakistan (Malik, Sattar, Shahzad, & Faiz, 2017), Saudi Arabia (Albishi & Alsharqi, 2018), Taiwan (Ma, Wang, & Chien, 2017) and Turkey (Yildirim, 2009), to name a few. The global prevalence of the issue raises questions as to whether bullying is inherent to nurse behaviour (Broome & Williams-Evans, 2011;Felblinger, 2008), education (Randle, 2003;Smith, Gillespie, Brown, & Grubb, 2016), nursing work (Johnson, 2009;Stevens, 2002), or the result of a combination of individual traits and organizational factors (Hutchinson et al, 2006).…”

Workplace Bullying among Nurses at Selected Hospitals in Port-Said City

“…Similarly, Kwan, Tuckey, and Dollard (2020) categorized types of WPB into work-related bullying and person-related bullying. Meanwhile, bullying among nursing harms the individual nurse, work team, patient care, and consequently, the healthcare organization as a whole (Albishi & Alsharqi, 2018).…”