ABSTRACT

Incivility is defined as rude, disrespectful, or condescending behavior displayed without regard for others. Such behavior can cause negative emotions in employees, such as fear, anger, and guilt. These emotions can result in burnout or compassion fatigue. Healthcare workers are among the professional groups that frequently encounter incivility behavior. While health care staff strive to help patients regain their health with all their strength, they sometimes encounter disrespectful attitudes from patients’ relatives. These behaviors can negatively impact health care staff. Based on this, this study aims to determine the effect of patient relative incivility experienced by clinical nurses while providing healthcare services on their tendencies toward negative affectivity and compassion fatigue. For this purpose, 560 clinical nurses working in a university hospital were selected as the research population. A questionnaire was used to collect data from this population. The research sample consisted of 242 clinical nurses who fully completed the questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and mediation analysis were performed on the data obtained from the sample using AMOS and SPSS software packages. According to the analysis results, patient relative incivility positively affects negative affectivity, and negative affectivity mediates the relationship between patient relative incivility and compassion fatigue. These findings suggest that clinical nurses' exposure to uncivil behaviors from patient relatives increases their negative affectivity, which in turn leads to compassion fatigue.

JEL Classification: M, M10, M19