Horizontal violence: Verbal aggression of nurses by nurses: An exploratory study of bargaining (union) and non-bargaining (non-union) nurses perceptions of verbal aggression by peers.

摘要

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore, describe and compare unionized and non-unionized registered nurses (RNs) and their perceptions of verbal aggression from peers. The problem is that there has been no research specifically investigating and comparing the verbal aggression directed at peers specifically from union and non-union nursing groups. Unresolved conflict may escalate into verbal aggression, verbal abuse, and eventually physical violence. This is a growing concern for healthcare organizations. The exploratory descriptive quantitative study is designed to investigate, describe, and compare union and non-union registered nurses regarding their perceptions of verbal aggression from peers to determine if their is a difference between them. A minimally adapted survey, incorporating characteristics of the perceived verbal interactions, and resulting behaviors, of which approval from original authors was obtained, was given to nurses from the state of Pennsylvania. This study looks at the types of verbal aggression, the frequency and stressfulness of each type, emotional reaction, cognitive appraisal, similarity and differences of each and the similarity and effectiveness of coping behaviors by unionized and non-unionized registered nurses. This study is significant in that, having nurses leave their positions early because of verbal aggression, abuse, and unresolved conflict only compounds the nursing shortage problem. Patient safety is a major concern for health care organizations. Unresolved conflict between care providers can result in inadvertent omissions, error commission, and covert sabotage, which places the recipients of that care at great risk, and a huge liability for heath care organizations, when health care costs are already significant. As more knowledge is gained about this perplexing problem, action plans can be developed to help control it. The value of the current study, to the scientific community and the human services field by imparting new knowledge about the differences in perceptions of verbal aggression by nurses, and the manner in which nurses communicate in complex organizations, may extend theories and begin to close the gap on a perplexing and enduring problem, which may have even wider applicability than just the nursing profession.