A study of 342 Midwest nurses confirms that higher resilience directly predicts lower workplace incivility and that job satisfaction is the single strongest predictor of both. More than one-third reported incivility has increased since COVID-19, with colleagues identified as the most common offenders.
Clinical Considerations
- Workplace incivility is directly linked to intent to leave: nurses experiencing incivility exit at higher rates, worsening staffing and patient outcomes.
- Two-thirds of nurses in prior studies report moderate to severe incivility; unchecked, it progresses to bullying and medication errors.
- Resilience functions as a protective buffer: nurses with higher resilience scores reported significantly less perceived incivility.
- This is a universal nursing issue, as no significant difference in incivility was found between rural and urban settings or across education levels.
Practice Applications
- Model civil behavior with colleagues as peers are the most common source of workplace bullying.
- Utilize available incivility training offered at your facility; only 60% of nurses in this study completed it.
- Report incivility through established channels rather than normalizing or absorbing uncivil behavior.
- Build resilience through peer support, work-life balance, and self-efficacy practices to buffer workplace stressors.
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