“You Need to Get Over the Difficulties and Stand Up Again”—A Qualitative Inquiry into Young Nurses’ Coping with Lateral Violence from the Feminist Perspective

Aimei Mao, Hon Lon Tam, Pak Leng Cheong and Iat Kio Van
Additional contact information
Aimei Mao: Education Department, Kiang Wu Nursing College of Macau, Macau 999078, China
Hon Lon Tam: Education Department, Kiang Wu Nursing College of Macau, Macau 999078, China
Pak Leng Cheong: Education Department, Kiang Wu Nursing College of Macau, Macau 999078, China
Iat Kio Van: Education Department, Kiang Wu Nursing College of Macau, Macau 999078, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 13, 1-14

Abstract: Previous studies have reported lateral violence (LV) styles among nurses and the adverse impacts of LV on nurses and nursing. Young nurses, including nursing students and novice nurses, are often victims of LV. A large qualitative research study that contained three sub-studies exploring professional identity development in different professional stages was conducted by a research team in Macau, Special Administrative Region of China. Semi-structured interviews with nursing students and clinical nurses were carried out; among the 58 participants in the three sub-studies, 20 described some forms of LV and their ways of dealing with them. Framed by the feminist perspective, the researchers explored young nurses’ coping strategies in dealing with LV perpetrated by senior colleagues. Two themes were developed reflecting the coping strategies for LV: “making extra efforts” and “soothing emotional distress”. Three sub-themes were under the theme of “making extra efforts”: “catching up knowledge”, “making the most use of learning resources”, “adjusting communication manner”; another batch of sub-themes was under the theme of “soothing emotional distress”: “seeking support from schoolmates”, “living with family but crying alone”, and “adjusting lifestyle”. The study implied that young nurses exerted their agency in coping with LV in clinical practices. Nursing managers and educators should support young nurses’ efforts in overcoming power-based LV and incivility.

Keywords: lateral violence; nursing students; novice nurses; feminist perspective; qualitative research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/13/7167/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/13/7167/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:13:p:7167-:d:588430

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().