Who's uncivil to who? Perceptions of incivility in pre-licensure nursing programs

The purpose of this study was to determine if there were differences in the perceptions of uncivil behaviors among nursing students and faculty according to pre-licensure nursing program types, and if there were any relationships in reported uncivil behaviors to the variables of age, gender, ethnic/racial background, and parental level of education. The sample was a convenience sample of 159 pre-licensure senior nursing students and 14 nursing faculty from four schools of nursing in the northeastern United States: two Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) programs, one Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) program, and one hospital-based diploma nursing program. The nursing students and nursing faculty were administered a mixed method, validated survey instrument, the Incivility in Nursing Education (INE) Survey (Clark et al., 2009). The results of the survey identified similarities and differences between the BSN, ADN, and diploma nursing programs for both the perceptions and experiences of uncivil behaviors, however no significant differences were found between the demographic variables and the occurrence of uncivil behaviors.