Swearing: its prevalence in healthcare settings and impact on nursing practice

Accessible summary Nurses working in all clinical settings experience high levels of verbal aggression and swearing. This study showed that: Little difference in the frequency of swearing was experienced by nurses working on children's wards compared with those in mental health services. Being subjected to swearing by patients between one and five times a week was reported by about a third of nurses, and continuous exposure by 7%. Swearing was frequently described as a normal part of conversation between colleagues; male nurses in the study were more likely than females to report it. Sexually based words were rated as more offensive than blasphemy or slang. Aggressive swearing directed at nurses caused them high levels of distress. Nurses reported having few effective strategies to deal with being subjected to aggressive swearing, which is likely to adversely affect patient care. Abstract Despite its prevalence there has been little academic research into swearing, and certainly none on its impact on nurses and nursing practice. Nurses are, of all health workers, most likely to be targets of verbal aggression, and up to 100% of nurses in mental health settings report verbal abuse. The literature contains no reference to the effects on nurses of exposure to swearing. This paper reports the findings of a questionnaire study of 107 nurses working in three clinical settings, which used a mixed methods approach. Participants reported high levels of swearing by patients, 32% citing its occurrence from one to five times per week and 7% 'continuously'; a similar incidence arose across the nursing teams at all sites, but being sworn at in anger by another staff member happened rarely. The study failed to show significant differences in the frequency of swearing between mental health and paediatric settings, but did find gender-based differences in both frequency of use and offendedness. High degrees of distress among nurses subjected to swearing were evident; moreover, respondents appeared to have only a limited range of interventions to draw upon in dealing with exposure to such treatment.