ISSN: 0976-4860
Debra Cyncynatus, Angela Saathoff, Tracey Soper and Angelica Abuton
Workplace bullying can have a negative impact on the newly licensed nurse, the patients they care for and turnover rates for nursing. This project was chosen because nurse residents reported a reduction in their satisfaction and commitment score on the 12-month Progression Survey and the nursing turnover rates had increased over the past two years. The purpose of this project was to implement a non-traditional anonymous reporting system, provide workplace bullying education and implement a zero-tolerance policy with the goal of improving the nurse resident satisfaction and commitment scores. A 10-week quality improvement project was conducted, using the Wounded Healer Theory, to help the ‘walking wounded’ nurse cope with stressors from bullying. The following PICOT question was asked: With newly licensed nurses in the acute care setting, how does a traditional anonymous reporting system (phone hotline) to identify workplace bullying, compared to a non-traditional anonymous reporting system (Google Voice) for workplace bullying, affect the satisfaction and commitment score on the 12-month Progression Survey, within 10 weeks? Data was collected at the end of the project and was analyzed for changes in the satisfaction and commitment domain. It was assumed that there would be an increase in the scores to the expected baseline or 10%, stretch goal. However, the scores fell short of the expected benchmark by 1% and the stretch goal was missed by 2.5%. There was a lack of Google Voice reports which showed the need to further address this issue from an organizational perspective versus a singular group.