Evaluating the impact of an educational intervention with cognitive rehearsal training on preparing pre-registration nursing students to respond to workplace incivility.

BACKGROUND

Workplace incivility can cause distress to nursing students and adversely affect team cohesiveness which can then negatively affect the quality of patient care. Preparing students to foster healthy work environments and deal with acts of incivility that threaten teamwork and patient safety becomes increasingly important as nursing students progress through their academic careers.

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to assess the impact of structured education based on cognitive rehearsal response training on pre-registration nursing students' self-efficacy perceptions in dealing with workplace incivility.

DESIGN

A single-group pre - and post - intervention study design.

SETTINGS & PARTICIPANTS: A consecutive sample of 91 third-year pre-registration Bachelor of Nursing students across three campuses of a single university participated in the study between August and October 2022.

METHODS

A concurrent nested mixed method design comprising a structured educational intervention and a 'before and after' survey (open-ended and closed-ended questions) was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of the intervention on nursing students' perceived self-efficacy in handling workplace incivility. The quantitative component was supplemented by qualitative insights from free-text comments on the quality and effectiveness of, and satisfaction with the educational intervention.

RESULTS

Participants reported an increase in perceived self-efficacy of 4.8 (SD = 4.5) points, 95 % CI [3.8, 5.8], during the post-intervention phase compared to the pre-intervention stage. This difference was statistically significant, t (90) = 10.2, p < .001, and large, d = 0.84. Additionally, the overall effectiveness of the educational intervention was rated highly, with a mean score of 8.51 and SD of 1.71. Qualitative content analysis revealed five categories: knowledge is power, the cue card method, simple and clear, role-playing realism, and the road to improvement and change. Qualitative content analysis revealed five categories: knowledge is power, the cue card method, simple and clear explanation, role-playing realism, and the road to improvement and change.

CONCLUSION

Cognitive rehearsal response training significantly enhanced nursing students' perceived self-efficacy in handling workplace incivility. Larger-scale randomised controlled trials are warranted in order to validate these findings and support broader scale implementation.