Coworker abuse in healthcare: voices of mistreated workers

Abstract

Purpose

The appalling abuse healthcare workers have endured from patients is long documented in the popular press and social media. Less explored in the healthcare management literature is workplace abuse that professional nurses experience from their coworkers.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors use text-based first-hand accounts from nurses posting on Reddit (N = 75) to better understand the types and context of abusive acts endured by their coworkers in the contemporary healthcare setting. Each account is content analyzed using two raters, and thematic analysis is utilized to summarize findings.

Findings

Findings indicate that nurse workplace abuse frequently targets new entrants to a work unit (e.g. recent grads), typically is ongoing, takes verbal and nonverbal forms, mainly stems from coworkers (i.e. lateral mistreatment), and frequently takes place in front of other coworkers, mainly in hospital settings.

Practical implications

By applying the lens of mindfulness, healthcare organizations can transform these harmful interactions within the nursing profession. The authors offer administrators and frontline workers practical implications for mitigating workplace abuse, including reshaping the culture, bystander interventions and explicit leadership support.

Originality/value

First-hand accounts from nurses in the frontlines of healthcare provide a rich voice that reveals the reality of ongoing verbal and nonverbal peer abuse in hospitals and healthcare settings.

Citation

Evans, W.R., Mullen, D.M. and Burke-Smalley, L. (2023), "Coworker abuse in healthcare: voices of mistreated workers", Journal of Health Organization and Management, Vol. 37 No. 2, pp. 236-249. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHOM-05-2022-0131