Correlates of new graduate nurses’ experiences of workplace mistreatment

Abstract

Objective: This study explores antecedents and consequences of new graduate nurses’ experiences of workplace mistreatment.

Background: New graduate nurses’ experiences of workplace mistreatment negatively influence organizational and personal health outcomes. Three types of workplace mistreatment are bullying, co-worker incivility, and supervisor incivility. It is unclear whether the relationships between precipitating factors and outcomes are similar when new graduate nurses experience these different types of workplace mistreatment. Methods: We surveyed 342 new graduate nurses in Ontario to examine the exploratory model related to each negative workplace behavior experience.

Results: Community had a stronger correlation to co-worker incivility (-.58) than supervisor incivility (-.32) and bullying (-.44). Structural empowerment was more related to bullying (-.34) and co-worker incivility (-.30) than supervisor incivility (-.22). Bullying had stronger correlations to all outcome variables. Job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion, and personal health outcomes were all negatively related to workplace mistreatment.

Conclusions: New graduate nurses’ experiences of three types of workplace mistreatment have similar relationships to precipitating factors and outcomes with stronger correlations to bullying than incivility.