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A Longitudinal Study of Workplace Incivility in a Hospital

Hutton, Scott

Abstract Details

2008, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Nursing : Nursing, Doctoral Program.
Workplace incivility is low-level deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target in violation of workplace norms (Andersson and Pearson 1999). Research has demonstrated that workplace incivility is associated with decreased productivity and negative health outcomes, but more information is needed about the underlying causes before interventions can be developed and tested. No research was found evaluating whether the level of workplace incivility has a single cause or multiple causes. If multi-causal, the level of incivility should fluctuate over time, whereas if it has a single cause, the level should remain stable until that cause is modified. The primary aim of this longitudinal study was to assess whether the level of workplace incivility fluctuated over time in a hospital setting. A secondary aim was to determine if demographic and employment characteristics were related to the level of incivility. Seventy-one randomly selected employees consented to participate and 85% (n=60) returned the Demographic/ Employment survey at baseline. Ninety percent of these participants were female, and 85% were Caucasian. The mean years of education were 13.86. The Incivility in Healthcare Survey (IHS) which consist of five scales measuring incivility from environmental, coworker, manager, physician, and patient sources and was distributed every month for 12 months to the participants. Women and younger employees reported significantly higher levels of incivility; whereas, those occupations reporting the lowest levels of incivility were the physicians and maintenance workers. A repeated measure ANOVA model indicated, while there was not significant fluctuations in the overall level of workplace incivility over 12 months (F=3.16 p<.0763), there were significant fluctuations in the level of workplace incivility from the coworker (F= 8.50 p=.0037) and environmental (F=5.70 p=.0174) sources. These differences in the findings regarding fluctuations over time may have been due to the inability of the IHS (a newly developed instrument) to fully capture incivility in this work setting. The relationships among incivility and age, gender, and occupational group provided new data regarding how incivility may be perceived differently by employees. If future research supports these results, the effect of demographic and occupational characteristics will need to be considered in intervention development.
Donna Gates, EdD (Committee Chair)
Sue Davis, PhD (Committee Member)
Paul Succop, PhD (Committee Member)
108 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Hutton, S. (2008). A Longitudinal Study of Workplace Incivility in a Hospital [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1211989910

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Hutton, Scott. A Longitudinal Study of Workplace Incivility in a Hospital. 2008. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1211989910.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Hutton, Scott. "A Longitudinal Study of Workplace Incivility in a Hospital." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1211989910

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)