Effective conflict management begins with knowing your style

[Conflict styles observed in doctors and nurses in health care organization]

INTRODUCTION

Health care workers often come into conflict situations while performing their daily activities. People behave differently when they come into conflicts and they are usually not aware of their own reactions. The aim of this paper was to establish the presence of conflict styles among health workers and the differences in relation to demographic characteristics (education, working experience, managerial position).

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The research was done as a cross-sectional study and through surveys. The conflict handling questionnaire was used as the research instrument. The questionnaire contained 30 statements arranged in five dimensions of conflict styles. The sample included one hundred nurses and fifty-five doctors.

RESULTS

The research showed that accommodating was the most often used conflict style. There was no significant difference in styles of managerial and non-managerial staff, but there was a significant difference in the styles adopted by doctors and nurses. It should be noted that nurses used avoiding and accommodating conflict styles much more often.

CONCLUSION

It is important to increase the awareness of conflict existence and the possibility of solving the problem constructively in order to achieve more efficient duty performance.

Conflict among Iranian hospital nurses: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND

This study aims to explore the experience of conflict as perceived by Iranian hospital nurses in Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran. Although conflict-control approaches have been extensively researched throughout the world, no research-based data are available on the perception of conflict and effective resolutions among hospital nurses in Iran.

METHODS

A qualitative research approach was used to explore how Iranian hospital nurses perceive and resolve conflicts at work. A purposive sample of 30 hospital nurses and nurse managers was selected to obtain data by means of in-depth semi structured interviews. Data were analysed by means of the content analysis method.

RESULTS

The emerging themes were: (1) the nurses' perceptions and reactions to conflict; (2) organizational structure; (3) hospital management style; (4) the nature and conditions of job assignment; (5) individual characteristics; (6) mutual understanding and interaction; and (7) the consequences of conflict. The first six themes describe the sources of the conflict as well as strategies to manage them.

CONCLUSION

How nurses perceive conflict influences how they react to it. Sources of conflict are embedded in the characteristics of nurses and the nursing system, but at the same time these characteristics can be seen as strategies to resolve conflict. We found mutual understanding and interaction to be the main factor able to prevent and resolve conflict effectively. We therefore recommend that nurses and nurse managers encourage any virtues and activities that increase such understanding and interaction. Finally, as conflict can destroy individual nurses as well as the nursing system, we must act to control it effectively.

Conflict Management Styles in the Health Professions

The purpose of the study was to determine prevalent conflict management styles chosen by students in nursing and to contrast these styles with those chosen by students in allied health professions. The associations among the level of professional health care education and the style chosen were also determined. A convenience sample of 126 students in a comprehensive university completed the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI), which requires respondents to choose behaviors most characteristic of their response to conflict and classifies these behaviors as one of five styles. There was no significant difference between the prevalent conflict management styles chosen by graduate and undergraduate nursing students and those in allied health. Some of the students were already licensed in their discipline; others had not yet taken a licensing exam. Licensure and educational level were not associated with choice of styles. Women and men had similar preferences. The prevalent style for nursing students was compromise, followed by avoidance. In contrast, avoidance, followed by compromise and accommodation, was the prevalent style for allied health students. When compared to the TKI norms, slightly more than one half of all participants chose two or more conflict management styles, commonly avoidance and accommodation at the 75th percentile or above. Only 9.8% of the participants chose collaboration at that level. Implications for nurse educators, researchers, and administrators are discussed.

Nurse-Nurse Manager Conflict

This study was conducted to determine the conflict management styles used by nurse managers when in conflict with nurses and to ascertain the differences between sociodemographic characteristics and the style used. The study was conducted on 71 nurse managers working in 3 different hospitals in Antalya (Turkey). A personal information form and Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory II were used for data collection. The most commonly used style by nurse managers when in conflict was integrating, and the least commonly used was avoiding. There was no difference between the style used and the nurses' educational status, marital status, and years of employment. The obliging style was used the most by those 45 years and older and those with 20 years or more of management experience, whereas the avoiding style was used by nurse managers with 6 to 10 years of management experience. This study suggests that nurse managers who are older and have management experience need to be encouraged to use effective conflict management and that there is a need for further research of the subject of factors that affect conflict management style.