“Nurses eat their young”: A novel bullying educational program for student nurses

Abstract

Bullying is a known and ongoing problem against nurses.  Interventions are needed to prepare nursing students to prevent and mitigate the bullying they will experience in their nursing practice. The purpose of this article is to describe the development process and utility of one such intervention for use by nursing faculty with nursing students prior to their students’ entry into the profession. The educational program was critiqued by an advisory board and deemed to be relevant, clear, simple, and non-ambiguous indicating the program to have adequate content validity. The program then was pilot tested on five university campuses. Faculty members who implemented the educational program discussed (1) the program having value to faculty members and students, (2) challenges to continued program adoption, and (3) recommendations for program delivery. The proposed multicomponent, multiyear bullying educational program has the potential to positively influence nursing education and ultimately nursing practice. Findings from the pilot implementation of the program indicate the need to incorporate the program into additional nursing courses beginning during the sophomore year of the nursing curricula.