The Correlation Between Nurses’ Work Engagement and Workplace Incivility

Background Because nurses’ work engagement is related to positive outcomes like increasing organization productivity, it is necessary to promote it. The first step to achieve this goal is to determine the factors associated with nurses’ work engagement, yet very few studies have been conducted on this subject in Iran. Objectives This study aimed at investigating the correlation between work engagement and workplace incivility in nurses who were working in selected teaching hospitals of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, Iran, during 2015 and 2016. Methods In this descriptive correlational study, 516 nurses were selected randomly from teaching hospitals of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences during 2015 and 2016. Data were collected using the demographic questionnaire, the utrecht work engagement scale, and the nursing incivility scale. Results The means of work engagement and workplace incivility scores were 3.59 ± 1.16 (average) and 2.68 ± 0.65 (low), respectively. A significant negative correlation was found between work engagement and workplace incivility in nurses (P < 0.01, r = -0.27). The findings of the present study revealed that the nurses’ work engagement and incivility from physicians were significantly different based on the type of ward. In addition, the mean score of incivility from physicians were significantly different based on different hospitals and work experience. Conclusions Nursing managers should use proper strategies to improve nurses’ work engagement and decrease the incidence of incivility in hospitals and clinical environments.