Abstrato

Conflict Management in a sample of the Nursing Staff of Surgical Departments

Patelarou A, Mavroforaki E, Vlasiadis Konstantinos and Patelarou E

The health sector demands inter-occupational co-operation, which increases the degree of interaction between health professionals, and thus the possibility of conflicts arising. Hospitals are a natural space in which conflicts might develop, in part because of the complexity of their structures, and partly because they include many different collaborative and interactive professional groups. The aim of this study was to evaluate the behavior of nurses as well as their knowledge regarding the handling of conflicts in the workplace. A cross-sectional study was conducted in a sample of nurses working in surgical domain of a university hospital in Greece. The researchers used the Greek version of the Questionnaire of Handling Conflicts for the nurses as research tool, after written permission for use. For the analysis of the data the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 24.0 was used, while the level of significance was set ≤0.05. The sample of the study consisted of 120 nurses working in surgical units of the university hospital. The majority was female (83.2%, n=94, and 13.3% (n=10) hold a Master’s degree, while only 4% (n=3) hold a Doctorate Degree. 73.3% (n=88) of the sample had never received any education regarding conflict management, since high school. Half of the participants highlighted the high overload in combination with a low salary as a reason for conflict (50%, n=60), as well as a moderate level of job satisfaction (35.8%, n=43). As a result, conflicts among health professionals are inevitable and the best way to manage this problem is reducing its frequency and its intensity through educational interventions.