Harassment and Bullying in Nursing

Answer

1. Harassment and Bullying in Nursing

   For the past few years, bullying and harassment in nursing have been on a constant rise in many medical facilities. Research conducted by Medscape Medical News in December 2017 indicated that more than 70 percent of nurses across the U.S. have at one point been harassed by their patients whereas 47 percent of physicians have experienced the same fate. The harassments were disseminated through stalking, persistent communication attempts, and improper social media contact (White, 2018). These forms of harassment have played a crucial role in impacting the proficiency of nurses, especially when dispensing care to patients.

   The interesting factor about nurse harassment is that is it mostly viewed as a form of horizontal violence or lateral violence. What’s more, managers rarely take action even if the complaints emanate from their workers. The perception that a majority of the nurse leaders have which contribute to the overlooking of these claims is that patients do not have the capacity of harassing medical practitioners (Serafin & Czarkowska-Pączek, 2019). Theirs is only to contest for quality care in case they feel that they are not satisfied, which is why many nurses rarely complain to their seniors. Ostensibly, studies indicate what whenever nurses express these issues to the seniors, they are always met with a series of backlash, A majority of harasses nurses have come forward to criticize their seniors who often insult nurses as well as question their ability to exercise their duties whenever complaints are brought forward.

   Quite often than not, nurses have always worked effortlessly in helping patients to recover despite being subjected to a series of challenges. The compassion, selflessness, and a sense of grace that nurses posses seem to be the determining factors that subject them to harassment (Serafin & Czarkowska-Pączek, 2019). This is because when nurses express these aptitudes, patients see them as vulnerable individuals. As a result, the predetermined actions from patients become harmful to the nurses since they are offensive and distressful to the recipient. In broader a prospective, these actions hinder the progressiveness of nurse ethics hence threatening nurse safety, patient safety as well as the reputation of the nursing profession.

   Similarly, the victims of harassment have expressed a decrease in job satisfaction. The lack of fulfillment, gratification as well as lack of enjoyment at the workplace has contributed to the laxity in job performance. It has been established that after nurses are terrorized the end up being annoyed and lose the motivation of being productive (White, 2018). Moreover, the paucity of support from the management of belittles nurses who feel that they have been deprived of their rights. Relatively, the social relationships between nurses and the management as well as nurses and patients decrease hence affecting the general output of care. In cases where the harassment is constantly manifested, employee turnover becomes eminent.

   Owing to the negative implications of harassment to nurses as well as the establishment, researchers should analyze its occurrence and determine the related causes. This will require a closer examination of the victims, perpetrators, and the environment. As a result, researchers will be able to determine the methods which could be implemented to reduce the occurrence of bullying at workplaces (Al-Ghabeesh & Qattom, 2019). In connection to this, the problem should be studied to help the management of defined medical facilities realize the different forms of harassment and establish whether they should be addressed or overlooked. This will in turn help the management to device remedial policies that protect the rights of the medical practitioners and the patients.