“The Whole Culture of Nursing Needs to Change”: A Descriptive Phenomenology of Nurses Being Bullied

Abstract

Workplace bullying impacts at least half of the nurses worldwide. Despite the link to increased nurse turnover, few intervention studies have addressed bullying in the workplace. Since most studies report cross-sectional designs that provide little insight into the complexities of this phenomenon, the purpose of this descriptive phenomenology was to describe the lived experiences of nurses as they were actively being bullied in the workplace. Semi-structured interviews were conducted through Skype until data adequacy was realized with 12 participant interviews. Giorgi’s six-step method was used to analyze the data in Atlas.ti. A central theme, “The whole culture of nursing needs to change” described an organizational culture where managers were unable to identify or unwilling to respond to workplace bullying. The four themes identified from the data included “going to work can be really hard,” “not good for patient care,” “learning to live with bullying,” and “changing the culture.” Leaders of organizations should implement comprehensive anti-bullying programs to assess bullying in their workplace and to provide bullied nurses with reporting options. Nurse managers need to prevent workplace bullying by intervening when aware of bullying and cultivating a culture of mutual respect. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.