Core Competencies of Civility in Nursing and Healthcare

Incivility and other workplace aggressions have a significant impact on the lives of healthcare professionals, faculty, and students, as well as the patients and families in their care. Incivility in academic and practice environments can provoke uncertainty and self-doubt, weaken self-confidence, and cause detrimental and lasting effects on individuals, teams, and organizations. These behaviors can fracture relationships and result in life-threatening mistakes, preventable complications, harm, or even the death of a patient.

In Core Competencies of Civility in Nursing & Healthcare, Cynthia Clark-a nurse-leader dedicated to organizational change and an unwavering advocate for civility and dignity for all-provides an abundance of practical solutions to create and sustain communities of civility, diversity, inclusion, and respect in academic and healthcare environments. Using a wealth of evidence-based interventions, hands-on tools, and scholarly resources, this book expands current thinking on the topic of civility to create and support healthy, productive work and learning environments for the benefit of all.

Cynthia M. Clark, PhD, RN, ANEF, FAAN, is founder of Civility Matters and Professor Emeritus at Boise State University. As a clinician, she specialized in adolescent mental health, substance abuse intervention and recovery, and suicide and violence prevention. She is a leading expert in fostering civility and healthy work environments around the globe. Her groundbreaking work on fostering civility has brought national and international attention to the controversial issues of incivility in academic and work environments. Her theory-driven interventions, empirical measurements, theoretical models, and reflective assessments provide "best practices" to prevent, measure, and address uncivil behavior and to create healthy workplaces. Clark is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, the NLN Academy of Nursing Education, and served as co-chair for the American Nurses Association Professional Panel on Incivility, Bullying, and Workplace Violence. She is a prolific researcher, presenter, author, and professional blogger. Her presentations number in the hundreds, and her publications have appeared in a broad range of peer-reviewed and open-access venues. She is the recipient of numerous teaching, research, and service awards, including a three-time recipient of the Most Inspirational Professor Award, the NLN Excellence in Educational Research Award, the Journal of Nursing Education Christine A. Tanner Scholarly Writing Award, the prestigious Elizabeth Russell Belford Award for Excellence in Education (awarded by Sigma Theta Tau International), and the John P. McGovern Lectureship Award conferred by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Clark has been honored as a Distinguished Scholar and Lecturer at 12 universities. The first edition of her book, Creating and Sustaining Civility in Nursing Education, received first-place honors as the 2013 AJN Book of the Year. The second edition is currently available and a must-read for all educators and healthcare professionals. Clark's current research includes preparing nurses to address incivility in the practice setting; bridging the education-practice gap to create positive work cultures; designing and testing empirical instruments to measure and address incivility; integrating civility, professionalism, and ethical practice into nursing curricula; and conducting intervention studies to measure the effectiveness of cognitive rehearsal and evidence-based "scripting" to address incivility and protect patient safety. Clark's empirical instruments have been translated into several languages and used to conduct studies in the United States, Israel, Iran, Indonesia, the Philippines, the People's Republic of China, Malaysia, Jordan, Canada, Uganda, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Jamaica, Greece, Columbia, Brazil, Taiwan, Turkey, and Pakistan. The Incivility in Nursing Education-Revised (INE-R) survey has been translated into 16 languages, and a multisite, international study led by Drs. Mohammed Baqer Al-Jobouri and Patience Samson-Akpan was completed in 11 countries (Iraq, South Africa, Greece, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, the Philippines, the United States, Kenya, Chile, and Serbia). Clark has served as a committee member and content expert for several graduate level studies, both nationally and internationally; many students have used her empirical instruments in doctoral dissertations, master's theses, and other scholarly works.