Bullying, harassment, and horizontal violence in the nursing workforce: the state of the science

Abstract

In the complex health care workplace of nurses, intra/interprofessional ideals intersect with the expectations of patients, families, students, and coworkers in a context of managed care environments, academia, and other health care enterprises. Integral to quality assessment, management, and assurance is collegial and respectful communication. Decades of reported descriptive and anecdotal data on intra/inter professional and on client communication, describe the antithesis of these ideals. Specifically, increasing frequency and rates of persistent bullying, harassment, or horizontal violence (BHHV) have shown to yield detrimental effects on workplace satisfaction, workforce retention, and the psychological and physical health of nurses as well as implied effects on quality of patient care and risk of poor health outcomes. Persistent BHHV among nurses is a serious concern. In advancing the science of description and explanation to a level of prevention intervention, explanatory models from biology, developmental psychology, intra/interpersonal interactionism are described along with theoretical explanations for the prevalence of BHHV in nurse workplaces. Making the connection between explanatory models and creative solutions to address BHHV through multiple levels of behavioral influence such as individual, environmental, interpersonal, and cultural contexts is key to advancing the science of the relationship between professional behavior and client/family/community health care outcomes.