Development of an Education Module on Conflict Resolution for Charge Nurses

A healthy work environment is essential for providing safe and efficient care for patients. When nurses avoid conflict on a patient care unit they create an unhealthy work environment by leaving problems unresolved. Avoiding conflict is common due to the perception that conflict is a negative outcome of dysfunctional relationships. In reality, conflict is a normal part of human interactions that stimulates individuals to adapt to the diversity that surrounds them. Increasing charge nurses‟ understanding of interpersonal conflict and improving their skills of constructive conflict resolution, supports the creation and maintaining of a healthy work environment. An education module titled Embracing Conflict: A Bridge to a Healthy Work Environment is offered as a component of an interactive learning lab for charge nurse orientation. The concepts mutuality, pattern of the whole, and expanding consciousness from Margaret Newman‟s Theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness provides a theoretical framework for the module‟s development. As charge nurses model the skills of addressing and resolving conflict, they will increase the likelihood that others will recognize the benefits of constructively resolved conflict and modify their own response. Direct observation of participants practicing conflict resolution skills along with questions from and employee satisfaction survey are used to assess for immediate and long-term changes in behavior