nurses' experiences of caring for patients who are incivil to them
Research type
Research Study
Full title
What are nurses' experiences of caring for patients who are incivil to them?
IRAS ID
344237
Contact name
Linden Simpson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 7 months, 1 days
Research summary
This study aims to use qualitative methods to gain a richer understanding of what it is like to be a nurse who is treated unkindly by their patient.
Research into this aspect of nursing work is necessary, as the 2017 NHS staff survey reported that 28% of the nurses who responded reported experiencing harassment from service users in the last twelve months. A wealth of studies have explored the frequency of patient aggression and linked it to reduced job satisfaction, reduced wellbeing, and increased levels of burnout in nurses, but little research has explored exactly how nurses experience patient incivility (behaviours intended to bully, coerce, belittle, injure, or humiliate the nurse).
Gaining a deeper understanding of this nursing experience may help inform nursing education and training, as well as policies, programs, and procedures to support nurses' wellbeing at work. It may also be of use within counselling and psychology.
To address this gap in the literature the researcher will recruit approximately eight nurses from within Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust inpatient wards, and conduct semi-structured interviews asking each participant to describe a specific time when a patient they were caring for treated them with incivility.
The interviews will then be explored with a sense of openness and curiosity to identify the essential components of each participants lived experience, focussing on the pre-reflective understandings, meanings, and assumptions of the nurse.
The researcher will then write a text that seeks to communicate the experience in a way that will allow the reader to gain a rich understanding of, and insight into, nurses experiences of patient incivility.
The researcher will be conducting and funding this research in order to fulfil the doctorate in counselling psychology program.REC name
West of Scotland REC 3
REC reference
25/WS/0045
Date of REC Opinion
1 May 2025
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion