Robert R. Wright

Conflict on the treatment floor: an investigation of interpersonal conflict experienced by nurses

Nurse conflict has numerous detrimental outcomes for healthcare organisations, patients and nurses themselves. Although past literature has advanced general understanding of conflict and aggression, much of it is limited in its explanation of negative interactions between nurses themselves. To address this, we used a mixed-method approach to identify and describe characteristics of conflict between nurses using content analysis of qualitative descriptions and associated quantitative ratings from practicing registered nurses over 12 weeks of a weekly work experience survey administered online. We found six reliable themes describing the nature of nurse conflict including such characteristics as feeling unfairly treated, others’ irresponsible behaviours and work disagreement. Conflicts containing perceived unfair treatment as well as negative emotion and rude behaviour between nurses were rated very negatively. Results suggest that a comprehensive workplace conflict prevention strategy should include multiple types of policies tailored to address each aspect of nurse conflict. Our findings reinforce the idea that healthcare organisations seeking to reduce nurse conflict should pay attention to promoting fair and courteous treatment among nurses as well as adopt policies to improve features of the work environment such as staffing and training.

The Workplace Interpersonal Conflict Scale: An Alternative in Conflict Assessment

163 COPYRIGHT 2017 BY PSI CHI, THE INTERNATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY IN PSYCHOLOGY (VOL. 22, NO. 3/ISSN 2325-7342) *Faculty mentor Interpersonal conflicts at work contribute to numerous detrimental health and safety outcomes that impact the well-being of employees and organizations, and are often upsetting, troublesome, and frequent work stressors (Bolger, DeLongis, Kessler, & Schilling, 1989; Williams, 2003; Wright, Mohr, Sinclair, & Yang, 2015). Interpersonal conflicts are pervasive, with employees reporting occurrences on, at minimum, 50% of work days (Hahn, 2000). Estimates suggest that more than 26% of the general worker population is negatively impacted by conflict (de Raeve, Jansen, van den Brandt, Vasse, & Kant, 2009). Furthermore, workplace interpersonal conflicts are frequently precursors to severe social problems such as workplace aggression and violence (Barling, Dupre, & Kelloway, 2009; Pearson, Andersson, & Wegner, 2001), as well as costly employee outcomes including turnover (Frone, 2000), burnout (Fujiwara, Tsukishima, Tsutsumi, Kawakami, & Kishi, 2003; Harvey, Blouin, & Stout, 2006), and depression and withdrawal (Inoue & Kawakami, 2010; Spector & Jex, 1998). Previous research has identified interpersonal conflict to be one of the largest reducible organizational costs and the single most important workplace stressor ABSTRACT. Interpersonal conflict is a prevalent workplace problem associated with numerous adverse consequences for both employees (e.g., depression, negative affect) and organizations (e.g., turnover, reduced productivity). However, many currently available self-report measures suffer from multiple methodological challenges that substantially hinder accurate and comprehensive measurement including the lack of specific elements of conflict identified by the literature subsequent to measure development, and a lack of rigorous empirical examination of psychometric properties. Thus, there is a need for a valid, psychometrically sound scale that can briefly capture perceptions of workplace interpersonal conflict in a contemporary work environment. The Workplace Interpersonal Conflict Scale (WICS) was developed to examine the frequency of conflict characteristics identified from a prior qualitative study of interpersonal conflict themes. In the current examination, we conducted an in-depth analysis of the psychometric properties of the WICS across 3 occupational samples including a cross-sectional study in health care (home care workers), a pre/post study in service (food service workers), and a large, diverse online sample (via MTurk). Results supported the 6-item WICS as a valid measure of workplace interpersonal conflict related to many other important workplace variables in the domains of work, health, and safety. Practical implications are presented and discussed. The WICS offers a promising measure that can be used in assessment, remediation, and prevention of noxious interpersonal cultures within the workplace. The Workplace Interpersonal Conflict Scale: An Alternative in Conflict Assessment

Protecting workers in the home care industry: workers’ experienced job demands, resource gaps, and benefits following a socially supportive intervention

ABSTRACT The Community of Practice and Safety Support (COMPASS) program is a peer-led group intervention for home care workers. In a randomized controlled trial, COMPASS significantly improved workers’ professional support networks and safety and health behaviors. However, quantitative findings failed to capture workers’ complex emotional, physical, and social experiences with job demands, resource limitations, and the intervention itself. Therefore, we conducted qualitative follow-up interviews with a sample of participants (n = 28) in the program. Results provided examples of unique physical and psychological demands, revealed stressful resource limitations (e.g., safety equipment access), and elucidated COMPASS’s role as a valuable resource.