Restorative approaches to workplace bullying: Educating nurses towards shared responsibility

Abstract

This paper summarises what is known about bullying in the nursing workplace and approaches currently employed to address the problem. Synthesising the available evidence it is identified that restorative approaches which seek to foster shared responsibility and positively influence group norms are underdeveloped. Based upon the principles of restorative justice this approach seeks to foster active responsibility for addressing bullying by building pro-social workplace relationships. Given the importance of socialisation processes in mediating and sustaining bullying among nurses, restorative approaches are proposed as a strategy that can be employed in nursing education to address bullying.

Keywords:

• bullying
• nursing
• restorative justice
• workplace violence
• shared responsibility
• nursing teams