Incivility in the Occupational Therapy Workplace: A Survey of Practitioners

Importance: Incivility in health care settings has detrimental effects on practitioners' well-being, patient outcomes, and health care costs. Objective: To explore the prevalence and types of perceived incivility experienced by occupational therapy practitioners in their workplaces and the relationships between perceived incivility and practitioner demographics. Design: Cross-sectional, online survey. Setting: Surveys were posted to occupational therapy social media sites. Participants: Occupational therapy practitioners throughout the United States. Outcomes and Measures: The Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R) was used to measure incivility and bullying. Participants answered demographic questions, and one-way analyses of variance and t tests were used to examine differences between demographic characteristics and mean scores on the NAQ-R. Results: A total of 1,320 practitioners completed the survey. Although the incidence of incivility was low compared with prior research in other health professions, 11% of respondents reported being victims of bullying in the workplace. Practitioners with less experience and who worked in long-term care and skilled nursing settings were more likely to experience incivility, and occupational therapy practitioners experienced significantly less incivility than occupational therapy assistants. Conclusions and Relevance: Practitioners, colleagues, managers, and organizations must collaborate to foster an environment of civility and respect to mitigate the effects of incivility on patient outcomes, practitioners' well-being, and health care costs. What This Article Adds: This survey provides baseline information regarding incivility experienced by occupational therapy practitioners, an important first step in developing evidence-based interventions to promote safe and healthy workplaces.