New research by the University of Western Sydney has found that some nurses are abusing patients and compromising hospital care as part of their bullying attacks on other nurses.
The findings, from stage one of the University's three-year Bullying in Nursing research project, depict the deliberate and predatory bullying tactics used by small but influential groups of nurses within our hospitals, and the devastating impact their behaviour has on the lives of their nurse targets.
According to one of the chief researchers, Associate Professor Margaret Vickers, who is conducting the study in partnership with two NSW Area Health Services, the study aims to build more awareness, better education and more support in order to improve nurses' working lives.
"There is a complex array of bullying behaviour being carried out by small pockets of nurses within our hospital system. These bullies set out to hound their targets and make their work lives impossible by increasing their stress and decreasing their control of situations," says Associate Professor Vickers.
"In most cases, the bullying was so bad the targeted nurses abandoned the nursing profession, taking lower-paid jobs and pay cuts of up to $40,000 a year.
"Many continue to suffer the physical and emotional trauma as a result of their abuse, such as panic attacks, worsened chronic illness, significant weight fluctuations, alcohol abuse and depression, and there was one report of suicide directly linked to bullying."
The study found that bullying of nurses can happen in a number of ways: rostering bullies on shifts together to "pick on" their nurse targets; controlling work tasks and withholding information; abusing and bullying patients to indirectly pressure the conscientious nurses being targeted; protecting and covering up for each other; and pinning the blame for mistakes on nurse targets to make them crack under pressure.
"One of the most disturbing findings was some of the bullies using patients to strike at their nurse targets, which we didn't expect at all," says Associate Professor Vickers.
"A bully nurse might verbally abuse a patient, fail to provide adequate patient care, or withhold critical patient information. The conscientious nurse who is being targeted is then forced to work even harder to fix what the bully has done, hide any wrongdoing from the patient, and undo any harm that might have been caused.
"In some cases, the bully would set up the situation so the target nurse became responsible for the mistakes - placing even more stress and strain on already overworked and under-resourced nurses."
Associate Professor Vickers says the research team interviewed twenty six nurses from two NSW Area Health Services - one metropolitan and one regional - who courageously came forward to speak of their experiences as victims of bullying, or having intervened in bullying behaviour.
"We were surprised by the extent of the sabotage carried out. It was described to us that bullies tend to work "like wolves in a pack" in order to bring their victims down," says Associate Professor Vickers.