Introduction

Lateral violence includes all acts of intimidation, humiliation bullying, unwarranted criticism and angry outbursts among other forms from a worker directed to another working (Clarke, 2014). In my current practice, most experienced nurses often feel superior to their inexperienced junior nurses. Therefore, they treat them with contempt as they feel they are more knowledgeable than them. For instance, one nurse may respond with an outburst on anyone enquiring of something that a colleague may have already have explained or considered it a too obvious. In some instances, one nurse may be disrespectful to others and refuse to engage another nurse in sharing patient information or other information that is pertinent to the nursing practice. If no one is willing to talk about and to address lateral violence, it will become a culture in nursing practice that will hinder teamwork and information sharing thereby hampering the overall quality of service.

Reasons why Lateral violence must Change

There are several reasons why lateral violence must change particularly in the nursing practice. Firstly, all healthcare systems aim at creating an environment that enables safe healthcare provision. The provision of this safe healthcare largely relies on cooperation and communication between healthcare givers. However, Lateral violence hinders the effectiveness of this communication and hence acts as an impediment to the provision of safe healthcare (Clarke, 2014). Therefore, lateral violence must change to create an environment enabling the provision of safe healthcare.

Secondly, lateral violence affects the productivity of individual nurses and their ability to deliver on their responsibility. An atmosphere of intimidation leads nurses to feel incapacitated in the delivery of healthcare. It robs the nurses the confidence of their capabilities and hence reduces their motivation in providing quality healthcare. For instance, a nurse who is constantly intimidated or harassed in different ways will not be able to freely provide care since he fails confident of his or her ability to provide such care. Therefore, Lateral violence must be eliminated in order give all nurses the support that gives them confidence in providing quality healthcare.

Thirdly, Lateral violence hinders information sharing in the nursing practice. For instance, a nurse may be less willing to share information he or she knows about a particular patient with another nurse because of fear of prejudice. Consequently, the nurse may not give adequate and quality healthcare to the patient because he or she does not know the essential information that may support the process depending on the circumstances of the patient. Therefore, lateral violence must change to encourage the efficient flow of information from one caregiver to another.

The reasons discussed above among others indicate the extent to which lateral violence affects the provision of safe and quality healthcare. It is reasonable to conclude that lateral violence in the setting of the nursing practice hinders the provision of safe and quality healthcare. Therefore, the change of this culture is necessary to guarantee an environment that supports safe and quality healthcare.

Stakeholders in the Nursing practice

Several stakeholders in the nursing practice are affected by the existence of lateral violence in the healthcare settings. These stakeholders include the healthcare facility management, patients, government, physicians and the nurses themselves among others. The stakeholders play a role in eliminating lateral violence in the workplace and particularly in healthcare settings. Therefore, these stakeholders must play an active role in eliminating lateral violence in healthcare facilities.

Firstly, the management of any healthcare facility or organization has the primary role in shaping the culture of the organization or healthcare facilities. They do this by outlining policies and procedures on different matters of interest to their facilities or organizations as well as the overall practice of healthcare provision. Therefore, the management of such facilities and organizations must equally foster an organizational culture of tolerance and condemn any act of lateral violence. The management can achieve this in two three ways. First, the management should outline a policy against lateral violence in their healthcare organizations. The strategy will foster a culture of mutual respect and tolerance and hence eliminate lateral violence. Secondly, the management should outline strict disciplinary consequences for acts of lateral violence. Lastly, the management must carry out an extensive awareness campaign among its staff and nurses in particular on the effect of lateral violence on quality healthcare.

Secondly, patients must equally be involved in stopping the practice of lateral violence in the healthcare setting. The patients must not entertain any healthcare giver or nurse who openly intimidates his or her college in their presence. Patients must learn to speak out on behalf of their... The patients should condemn any nurse who propagates lateral violence and informs them of the effect of such violence on the overall healthcare system.
The government is an equal interested party in healthcare provision that must equally play a role in changing the culture of lateral violence. The government regulates health care services and hence must use such regulatory authority to change the culture of lateral violence in healthcare facilities. For instance, the government can institute policies and laws that monitor and give strict consequences to lateral violence in healthcare facilities. This regulation and enforcement will help greatly in changing the culture of lateral violence in healthcare facilities.

Lastly, nurses must themselves play a critical role in changing the culture of lateral violence in healthcare facilities. The nurses should sensitize their fellow nurses on the impact of lateral violence on the entire healthcare system. This understanding will greatly help in creating awareness on the far-reaching effect of lateral violence on the entire healthcare system and hence stop it. Moreover, this peer approach will help to keep each other in check regarding lateral violence and hence create an atmosphere that supports tolerance among nurses.

Evidence Critic Table

Evidence

Evidence strength (1-7) and evidence hierarchy

Pontus, C., & Ortner, P. (2013). The Relationship between Lateral and Horizontal Violence and Bullying. Epidemic of Medical Errors and Hospital-Acquired Infections, 2(2), 209-224

Evidence strength is 2

The article presents a case study showing how bullying, Horizontal and lateral violence interacts. The authors of the article carry out a research study that seeks to demonstrate that interrelationship. This article contributes to the topic of lateral violence by demonstrating how deferent stakeholders foster lateral violence and how they can be involved in changing the culture.

Sanner-Stiehr, E. (2017). Using Simulation to Teach Responses to Lateral Violence. Nurse Educator, 42(3), 133-137.

Evidence strength 6

The article illustrates how simulation can be an effective tool in teaching nurses on the impact of lateral violence and hence contributing to the overall change of the culture of lateral violence in the setting of healthcare facilities. This article contributes to the topic of lateral violence by explaining how the administrations of healthcare facilities can effectively use training as a way of sensitizing about the overall effect of lateral violence to the healthcare system.

Sanner-Stiehr, E., & Ward-Smith, P. (2014). Lateral violence and the exit strategy. Nursing Management (Springhouse), 45(3), 11-15.

Evidence strength 5

This article defines lateral violence and outlines its effect on the healthcare system. The article also discusses how various stakeholders contribute to the existence of lateral violence and how they can equally play a role in eliminating such violence. Overall, the article highlights the various ways through which the healthcare facility can effectively create an atmosphere of tolerance and change the culture of lateral violence. This article is relevant to the current topic as it highlights strategies of exiting from the culture of lateral violence.

Dahlby M.A., Herrick L. M., (2014) Evaluating an Educational Intervention on Lateral Violence. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 45(8), 351-352.

Evidence rating 1

This article evaluates the effectiveness of the educational intervention in eliminating lateral interventions in a healthcare setting. The research presented in this article was conducted through a pre-education evaluation test and a post-education evaluation test on the attitude of nurses towards lateral violence. 29 nurses were sampled for this exercise. The findings of this research indicate that educational interventions help reduce or eliminate the extent of lateral violence in the setting of healthcare. This article is relevant to the topic as it gives practical experimental evidence on the effect of educational interventions on the extent of lateral violence in healthcare facilities.

Ceravolo, D. J., Schwartz, D. G., Foltz-Ramos, K. M., & Castner, J. (2013). Strengthening communication to overcome lateral violence. Journal of Nursing Management, 20(5), 599-606.

Evidence rating 1

This article describes how the strategy of strengthening communication among nurses can effectively help in eliminating lateral violence. The article presents a research study in which nurses were taken through a communicational strengthening educational program and subjected to a pre and post interventions survey. The finding of this research indicates that the reported cases of lateral violence greatly reduced when the nurses were subjected to these interventions. Therefore, the article concludes that strengthening communication among nurses is a strong way of changing…