Abstract

Session presented on Saturday, March 18, 2017:

Nurses must be able to effectively communicate information to other members of the healthcare team. Between 33% and 72.6% of nurses experience bullying in their work environment (Berry, Gillespie, Gates, & Schafer, 2012; Laschinger, Grau, Finegan, & Wilk, 2010). Bullying and incivility can negatively impact a nurse's ability to communicate vital information to other team members. The Joint Commission reports that a root cause of the majority of sentinel events involve communication (Joint Commission, 2015). There have been several initiatives aimed at improving communication between healthcare team members, but these programs are aimed at practitioners, not students. Nursing students have limited opportunities to practice communication with healthcare providers. Students are often exposed to incivility and bullying in clinical settings, but often do not report or seek help in dealing with these challenges (Anthony, Yastik, MacDonald, & Marshall, 2014). Schools of nursing teach students to report findings using Situation Background Assessment Recommendation (SBAR) and Concerned Uncomfortable Safety (CUS) from Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS). However, these skills are not always reinforced in the clinical setting. Learned communication skills are more difficult to implement when confronted with incivility or bullying. Researchers have reported that when people are faced with incivility or bullying the victims have increased anxiety levels (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2011). Nursing students are particularly vulnerable to increased levels of anxiety when faced with incivility or bullying. These negative behaviors can cause students to doubt their ability to function as a student nurse, decreasing their self-efficacy and damaging the learning environment. Nursing students that have the opportunity to practice skills in simulation have decreased anxiety and increased self-efficacy in those skills (Megel et al., 2012). This suggests that a simulation scenario in which students can practice communication skills in dealing with incivility and bullying in the workplace could alleviate some anxiety and increase self-efficacy in their communication skills when exposed to these situations as a registered nurse.

Author Details

Penny A. Sauer, RN, CCRN, CNE; Margaret M. Verzella, RN; C. Elise Thompson, RN

Sigma Membership

Nu Omega

Lead Author Affiliation

University of North Carolina Wilmington, Wilmington, North Carolina, USA

Type

Poster

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

N/A

Research Approach

N/A

Keywords:

Communcation, Incivility or Bullying, Nursing Students

Conference Name

Creating Healthy Work Environments 2017

Conference Host

Sigma Theta Tau International

Conference Location

Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

Conference Year

2017

Rights Holder

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All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

Abstract Review Only: Reviewed by Event Host

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

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Nursing students communication skills training in the face of incivility or bullying

Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

Session presented on Saturday, March 18, 2017:

Nurses must be able to effectively communicate information to other members of the healthcare team. Between 33% and 72.6% of nurses experience bullying in their work environment (Berry, Gillespie, Gates, & Schafer, 2012; Laschinger, Grau, Finegan, & Wilk, 2010). Bullying and incivility can negatively impact a nurse's ability to communicate vital information to other team members. The Joint Commission reports that a root cause of the majority of sentinel events involve communication (Joint Commission, 2015). There have been several initiatives aimed at improving communication between healthcare team members, but these programs are aimed at practitioners, not students. Nursing students have limited opportunities to practice communication with healthcare providers. Students are often exposed to incivility and bullying in clinical settings, but often do not report or seek help in dealing with these challenges (Anthony, Yastik, MacDonald, & Marshall, 2014). Schools of nursing teach students to report findings using Situation Background Assessment Recommendation (SBAR) and Concerned Uncomfortable Safety (CUS) from Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS). However, these skills are not always reinforced in the clinical setting. Learned communication skills are more difficult to implement when confronted with incivility or bullying. Researchers have reported that when people are faced with incivility or bullying the victims have increased anxiety levels (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2011). Nursing students are particularly vulnerable to increased levels of anxiety when faced with incivility or bullying. These negative behaviors can cause students to doubt their ability to function as a student nurse, decreasing their self-efficacy and damaging the learning environment. Nursing students that have the opportunity to practice skills in simulation have decreased anxiety and increased self-efficacy in those skills (Megel et al., 2012). This suggests that a simulation scenario in which students can practice communication skills in dealing with incivility and bullying in the workplace could alleviate some anxiety and increase self-efficacy in their communication skills when exposed to these situations as a registered nurse.