Incivility of Nurses in Uganda: Causes and Skills Needed to Cultivate Civility

Abstract

The research was undertaken to establish the causes of incivility and skills needed for cultivating civility among practising nurses. Workplace incivility is a common phenomenon. Unfortunately, not much is known about it in Uganda’s health sectors and this motivated this research.    A qualitative approach was used and a total of 195 respondents were interviewed to establish their experiences with nurses in public and private hospitals around Kampala. The qualitative data was thematically analysed. Incivility was found to be higher in the public than in the private hospitals, and with diverse causes. The lowest rates were in the Christian-founded not-for-profit facility. Interpersonal skills were found to be most needed to cultivate civility. Nursing administrators are instrumental to cultivating civility. They and other stakeholders are, however, cautioned that all these take commitment and careful planning if better outcomes are to be realised from the nurses and the health sector in general.

Keywords: incivility, nurses, health sector, Uganda.