Bullying amongst nurses working for a private hospital group in eight provinces of South Africa

Abstract

Interest in workplace bullying amongst nurses has been steadily increasing over the decades, with the main focus on understanding contributory factors, prevalence rates and its consequences.. This quantitative study reports on the prevalence, frequency and responses to bullying incidents by nurses confronted by workplace bullying in hospitals in the private sector. A two-stage cluster sampling strategy and convenience sampling was applied to randomly select 25 private hospitals in eight provinces in South Africa; the final sample included 300 nurses. Data were collected using the English version of the 22-item Negative Acts Questionnaire – Revised (NAQ-R). The study found that, although incidents of physical bullying were reported to have occurred, the negative bullying behaviours reported were mostly psychological in nature, occurred mostly at night, and varied between provinces. The main contributing factors were poor communication and leadership. The recommendations arising from this study focus on nurse training, equipping them with tools to withstand workplace violence, creation of awareness around bullying and support of victims and finally ensuring that policies for managing bullying are made available.