Workplace hazing in nursing: An integrative literature review

Abstract

This study aims to provide an integrative literature review of what characterizes the antecedents, experiences, and outcomes of nursing students’ and nurses’ workplace hazing experiences. The review combines theoretical and empirical studies of workplace hazing, nursing students, and newly graduated nurses’ transition experiences. An electronic database search was performed in CINAHL, Google Scholar, MEDLINE, ProQuest, PsycINFO, PUBMED, Scopus, and Web of Science. Fifty-five papers collecting data from 8,131 respondents (1,733 nursing students and 80 newly graduated nurses) published from 1968 to 2023 and reporting on research occurring in a non-virtual workplace setting, were synthesized and analyzed using thematic coding. The study found that nursing students and new nurses are typically exposed to segregation and person- and work-based workplace hazing by their experienced colleagues during the transition, adversely affecting their physical, emotional, and psychological well-being and relational quality expectations. Applying the workplace hazing perspective to the nursing literature on newcomers’ transition experiences contributes to a nuanced understanding of the phenomenon and its underlying motivation and illuminates its ambiguous moral character. Furthermore, despite prioritizing the group's welfare above that of the newcomer, hazing's adverse individual outcomes might ultimately damage the workgroup and organization and contribute to a further nursing shortage.