Undermining self-efficacy: the consequence of nurse unfriendliness on client wellbeing

Although unfriendly nurse behaviours are noted in research findings, no study names these behaviours as such, nor investigates the impact of nurse unfriendliness on clients. Because the present findings reveal the phenomenon of nurse unfriendliness, they allow both the phenomenon and its consequences to be understood. These findings were developed through secondary data analysis of a text where participants discussed their encounters, during hospitalisation/s in 2002-2003, with friendly and unfriendly nurses. Findings reveal nurse unfriendliness is characterised by frostiness, officiousness and apathy. It results in thoughtless and inept nursing and in a hostile environment where clients feel unsafe, unwelcome and unaided. Unfriendly nurses create barriers - they are disrespectful, cheerless, unresponsive and domineering so clients feel belittled, disheartened, unprotected and distressed. When clients are placed in this position, their self-efficacy is undermined. By revealing the consequences of nurse unfriendliness on client wellbeing, findings from this study advance nursing knowledge.