Why We Need a Single Definition of Disruptive Behavior

Abstract

Disruptive behavior is known to produce a wide range of negative effects in healthcare, such as impacting patient safety, lowering employee morale, and decreasing employee retention. Healthcare organizations have worked towards eliminating disruptive behavior; however, despite countless interventions, the issue continues to be a problem today. Why then does the issue of disruptive behavior persist? We argue that one reason is the multiple ways disruptive behavior can be described, henceforth defined as the "plurality of terms", which can make it difficult to collect relevant data by doing a simple literature search. Hence, we believe having a single definition for "disruptive behavior" will improve the meta-analysis on disruptive behavior research.

Keywords: behaviors that undermine a culture of safety; bullying; disruptive behavior; disruptive clinicians; disruptive physicians; horizontal violence; incivility; lateral violence; medical student mistreatment; nurse verbal abuse.

Figure 1. Students who were publicly humiliated

The bar graph illustrates the percentage of students who reported in the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) surveys for the years 2013 to 2016 that they were publicly humiliated once, occasionally, or frequently. [32-33, 36-37]

Figure 2. Experiences of students being mistreated

The bar graph illustrates the percentage of students who reported in the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) surveys for the years 2013 to 2016 that they were mistreated. [32-33, 36-37]