Abuse

Much has been written about verbal abuse of nurses; a recent study in Nursing Outlook correlates physician verbal abuse of nurses with a poor work environment. However, nurses can abuse other nurses as well. The old phrase "nurses eat their young" was found to be true in a study in the Journal of Nursing Scholarship, which found early career RNs are vulnerable to verbal abuse from their nurse colleagues. Moreover, this abuse is more often found in units with poor working conditions. It is unclear if the poor conditions cause the abuse, or the abuse causes the unfavorable working environment.