Perceptions of Incivility Among Operating Room (OR) Nurses

"Workplace incivility is defined as low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target, in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect. Uncivil behaviours are characteristically rude, discourteous, displaying a lack of respect for others" (Anderson & Pearson,1999, p. 457).Typical behaviors include complaining about others, sarcastic and humiliating comments about others, ignoring or intentionally disregarding other’s opinions or input, and insulting or belittling others in public (Alspach, 2008, Lachman, 2014).The literature has revealed that incivility has a negative impact on patient safety. Studies have shown that incivility can cause impaired communication patterns which result in an increase in medication errors, reduced quality of care, and poor patient outcomes (Rosenstein & O’Daniel, 2006; McNamara, 2012). Research has shown that 46% of participants were aware of an adverse event that occurred due to increase stress as a result of bullying or disruptive behaviors that occurred between hospital employees (Rosenstein & O’Daniel, 2006). This incivility problem costs hospitals billions each year (Nikstaitis & Simko, 2014).

Incivility in the profession equates to a negative impact on nursing satisfaction. Uncivil behavior has been shown to cause nurses to experience post-traumatic stress disorder and symptoms such as low self-esteem, anxiety, sleep disturbance, recurrent nightmares, and depression (Blair, 2013). Several studies have revealed that decreased job satisfaction and increased job turnover occur most often when nurses have experienced incivility from a supervisor with co-worker incivility being the next most common cause of dissatisfaction (Lieter, Price, Spence-Laschinger, 2010; Spence-Laschinger, Leiter, Day, & Gilin 2009; Vessey, Demarco, Gaffney, & Budin, 2009). Job turnover related to incivility is expensive and counterproductive to an organization. Hutton and Gates (2008) revealed the mean cost per person from decreased productivity was $1484.03 for a registered nurse, with an estimated cost based on the study sample to be $264,847.34. Lewis & Malecha (2011) reported that the cost of lost productivity as a result of workplace incivility was found to be $11581.00 per nurse per year with almost 85% reporting that they had experienced incivility in the workplace within the last year.

Research to date has focused on nurses in general with little research examining incivility among nurses who work in operating rooms (OR). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the perception of incivility among nurses who work in OR. This is a descriptive study that will be using the Nursing Incivility Scale (Guidroz, A., Burnfield-Geimer, J., Clark, O., Schwetschenau, H., & Jex, S., 2010) to survey operating room nurses. The surveys will be completed online and participants will complete these surveys anonymously. The survey will collect demographic and incivility data.This study is currently in process with survey results pending but data will be available for distribution by the conference date.