The Conflict Process in Nursing Communication

Conflict Process

People with varying professional and personal backgrounds may often differ in practice or opinion on the best course of action. Misunderstandings and disagreements are bound to occur in any fast-paced healthcare setting. However, hostility and conflict should not be confused and merged. For example, when people disagree, let’s say with the care plan of a particular patient, have serious ethical concerns with some procedures, or may be unhappy with how a colleague handles a situation, mechanisms of conflict resolution and tension de-escalation are vital in nursing (Arveklev et al. 2018). When nurses learn and practice solving conflicts, they make their days at work more manageable and redirect everyone’s attention and focus to the patients and their families who need them most.

Conflict is, therefore, a clash and a struggle of principles, opinions, or interests. Conflicts always occur in a working setup. However, the basis may range from international, personal, racial, caste, and class. Conflict can as well be theoretical, emotional, and intellectual. Intellectual conflict usually grows over time based on different cultural beliefs and values, hence, considered a subclass of cultural conflict. Within a group, conflict mostly takes a particular dimension. The usual interaction within the group first gets distorted by the initial conflict, caused mainly by members’ disagreements, opinion differences, or resource scarcity to the group. At this juncture, unity within the group no longer exists, and it can split into various divisions (Miles & Scott, 2019). Nevertheless, in some instances, this escalation period can be de-escalated through a conflict resolution stage, from which the group can reunite and return to regular group interaction.

On the other hand, Merriam Webster refers to conflict as any struggle caused by opposing or incompatible needs, wishes, drives, internal or external demands. However, where the battle occurs between two or more individuals, such conflict is interpersonal conflict. Interpersonal conflict can be between a range of levels like nurses and patients, nurses and doctors, and nurses themselves. Another type of conflict is known as issue-based conflict. It often results from disagreements on how to handle an issue. The leading cause of tension in issue-based conflict is a different approach to finding a solution. Conversely, value-based conflicts result from differences in ethics or values within the nursing practice (Arveklev et al., 2018). Values and ethics are usually influenced by the individual’s life experience, education, industry norms, personal background, work environment, amongst others.

Besides, it is critical to know that in nursing, differences in ethics, personal values, and even conflicts result because a practice, opinion, or procedure on is witnessing contradicts the regulations, ethics, or rules of healthcare and nursing industry (Arveklev et al. 2018). In this case, codes of ethics exist to ensure the safety of the providers and patients, and as a practitioner, you must adhere to such codes of conduct.

Example of a Conflict

At Penda Health organization, it is a norm to keep the medication fridge, narcotic cupboard, medication cart, and syringe drawers open during nurses’ shifts and change of shift. However, on a particular day, Nurse John walked in during his shift and found the medication fridge, narcotic cupboard, medication cart, and syringe drawers locked by nurse Emmy without prior alert, warning, or notice. John decided to respond through retaliation, thus, decided to lease out his frustrations secretively. He agreed to report to work late whenever he received a report and keys from nurse Emmy. He would also count and confirm everything in a prolonged manner to delay Emmy further.

Afterwhile, it was deemed to nurse Emmy that nurse John had developed a poor attitude towards her. Nonetheless, Nurse John felt it was appropriate to use his communication skills to resolve the conflict. John informed Emmy that she “Emmy” had intentionally locked up everything without inconveniencing John. As a result, he, “John,” has been retaliating coming to work late whenever nurse Emmy is supposed to hand it over to him that he would also precede on purpose to unlock slowly, count, and confirm to retaliate.

Notably, according to nurse Emmy, the Penda Health organization policy was that everything not in use was locked. However, even though it became a norm not to shut anything, the commissioner issued a citation over non-compliance with the policy during the state inspection. Effectively, Nurse Emmy saw it wise to detach from the norm and adhere to the policy to avoid any other possible citation (Miles & Scott, 2019). However, assuming that everyone else would understand her course of action, she failed to communicate the change in routine from the usual practice (Arveklev et al., 2018). Consequently, her colleague ‘nurse John’ assumed she was locking everything on purpose or as an act of revenge for some unknown reason. The misunderstanding and conflict between nurse John and Emmy were resolved by giving explanations and asking open-ended questions.

Practical communication skill is a model that can manage or prevent conflict between or amongst nurses. It is therefore essential for a nurse to try to understand one another. Literally, in most conversations, an individual would think of what response to give instead of listening to what is said. Communication is effective when the message received is interpreted as intended. Therefore, nurses must learn to listen to one another actively (Hoskins et al., 2018). One has to listen to the other without interruption for good communication to occur.