Work Environment and Workplace Bullying among Korean Intensive Care Unit Nurses

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between perceived work environmentand workplace bullying among Korean intensive care units (ICU) nurses. Methods: This is a descriptive survey research, with 134 ICU nurses from five hospitals in Korea. Thework environment was measured by the Korean Nursing Work Environment Scale. Workplace bullyingwas measured with the Korean version of the Negative Acts QuestionnaireeRevised. Results: ICU nurses reported moderate satisfaction with their work environment, with perception of thebasic work system receiving the highest scores. A total of 94.0% of ICU nurses have experienced at leastone negative act within the past 6 months, and the prevalence of bullying was 17.2% according tooperational bullying criteria. The ICU nurses reported that they experienced more work-related bullyingthan other types of bullying. Significant negative correlations between the nursing work environmentand workplace bullying were found. Conclusion: These findings indicate that the better the nursing work environment, the less workplacebullying nurses will experience. Further research needs to be done to identify factors that influencebullying in the nurses and to develop an intervention that prevents workplace bullying.