Perception of student nurses' bullying behaviors and coping strategies used in clinical settings

Running head: EVIDENCE BASED PRACTICE
Evidence based practice
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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EVIDENCE BASED PRACTICE
Introduction:
Bullying in the educational environment represents a grave challenge that deteriorates
the educational experience of a varied range of student groups; be it culturally or ethnically
diverse, sexual minority groups, disabled students or some other form of socially
disadvantaged group of students (Hebron and Humphrey 2014). Bullying and harassment is
undoubtedly a global issues, and both local and global authorities have taken efforts to
address and reduce the impact and prevalence of bullying from all fields, especially in the
educational field. Unfortunately however, there is very little improvements that have been
made to the situations, with bullying still prevalent in different forms, in society, both in
educational and professional spectrum (Kassem 2015). The concept of bullying is also
extremely prevalent in nursing education, and there is mounting evidence which indicates
that the impact and fear of bullying has been highlighted as one of the most fundamental
contributing factor to nursing school drop outs across the globe, which is leading to extreme
staffing shortage and decreased care quality. Hence, bullying is grave issue and it is crucial to
investigate the bullying scenario and explore the core of the issues so that it can be
adequately addressed (Mott 2014). This assignment will attempt to discuss the two research
evidence, one with a qualitative research design and the other with a quantitative research
design, and evaluate the quality of the evidence thoroughly, providing a final synthesis of the
review to discuss the merit of both of articles.
Article 1:
Hakojärvi, H.R., Salminen, L. and Suhonen, R., 2014. Health care students' personal
experiences and coping with bullying in clinical training. Nurse education today, 34(1),
pp.138-144

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EVIDENCE BASED PRACTICE
Research question and design:
The first article under review is by Hakojärvi, Salminen and Suhonen (2014) which is
a qualitative study attempting to explore the bullying experience of Finnish health care
students belonging to two of the universities of applied sciences, with emphasis on the
experience and coping of the bullying of the students facing bullying in clinical training. The
research question for this research study focuses entirely on the bullying experience of the
children in the clinical training and how they cope with it throughout the clinical training.
The authors of the article have discussed the justification for this topic as the focal point of
the research with the ideation that rest of the evidences has only focussed on the experience
of the students when facing any bullying or discrimination. Hence, there is limited literature
that has focussed on how the student cope with the bullying and how they progress forward in
their training (Glesne 2015). The research questions for this research study are:
1) How does bullying experienced by students manifest itself in clinical training?
2) What kind of consequences has bullying had on the students?
3) What kind of help do students receive by sharing their bullying experiences?
4) What kind of informational needs do students have concerning acting and coping in
bullying situations?
Each of the questions relate excellently with the aim and objective of the study to
explore the extent of bullying experienced by the student and the range coping systems or
aids that are provided to the students facing bullying by the institute. Hence, it can be
considered that the research question addresses the aims and objectives of the research study
successfully. Moreover, as this research study has focused both on the experience and the
coping strategies of the students as well, which indicates that this research study is attempting
to provide novel insight on a very grave issue.

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EVIDENCE BASED PRACTICE
Considering the research design of the article, the authors have opted for a qualitative
research design for the study. Now, it has to be mentioned that the primary aim and
objectives of the research study is to explore and understand the extent of the bullying
experience of the health science students, the impact of the same on the students and the kind
of coping strategies they develop to overcome the stress of the bullying throughout their
learning journey. In this case, it has to be acknowledge that different people react and
respond to bullying uniquely, and hence the impact and the coping strategies for the students
also differ drastically (Hebron and Humphrey 2014). Hence, in order to understand the exact
impact and coping response of the target population, it is crucial to capture their emotions,
feelings and thoughts extensively. The qualitative research design of the research study is
utilizing semi-structured interviews with an electronic semi-structured questionnaire, and the
data collected was analysed through an inductive content analysis, ensuring the integration of
the true emotions and thoughts of the students effectively. Hence, the research design
selected had been apt and appropriate for the aims and objectives set (Cresswell 2014).
Measurement issue and evaluation of validity, authenticity and reliability:
Outcome measurement is a very important aspect of the research studies, outcomes
measures can be defined as the factors or variables that are assessed to acquire and analyse
the data in terms of the research questions. In this case, the semi structured questionnaire had
6 questions in total and each represent one outcome measure for the study. Four questions
correspond to manifestation of bullying in clinical training, focussing on the kind of bullying
situations observed, the range of bullying activities faced, physical impact of the bullying and
who had been the perpetrator of the bullying (Hakojärvi, Salminen and Suhonen 2014). The
last two questions correspond to Coping with the bullying experience, emphasizing on what
influenced their decision to share your bullying experiences and what kind of helping
services they received from the people that they shared their experience with. Hence, it can