Health and Mental Health

As healthcare organizations use approaches such as structural empowerment theory and nurse residency programs to engage new graduate nurses in becoming productive members of the organizational culture, bullying and incivility experienced by these nurses can undermine organizations' efforts. Chapter 3 introduces the Reporting of Uncivil Conduct Chain of Command to provide support and direction to nurses that are experiencing bullying by perpetrators in the workplace. Unresolved and persistent uncivil conduct can result in health and mental health problems for affected nurses. Hence, in order to protect nurses' overall health and safety, it is necessary for organizations to adopt zero tolerance for bullying and incivility. Additionally, nurses may benefit from screening programs that can identify risks for self-harm secondary to stress and depression that could be caused by incivility in the workplace.

The Utah Experience: Our Secret Sauce for Long-Term Care Nurse Residency Programs

Nurses working in long-term care (LTC) have a paucity of geriatric knowledge and leadership skills. One method of meeting this challenge is by offering an online geriatric-focused nurse residency program (NRP) to LTC nurses. The goal of the NRP is to provide geriatric nursing competencies to prepare LTC nurses to care for complex older residents and lead staff. Construct measures include geriatric knowledge and skills, self-rated efficacy, and attitudes towards QI. To date, 46 nurses have enrolled in the program. Completers’ state they have increased knowledge and confidence; but turnover and workload issues often prevent nurses from completing the program. Thus, the current NRP with 6 nurse residents is streamlined to be completed in 4 months and with a focus on the 4 M’s, leadership and geriatric competencies and resilience. Future plans are for the NRP to be available for nurses from all long-term services and supports settings.