Conflict Resolution in Nursing: Importance and Strategies

A Smiling Nurse Shows a Patient a Tablet While a Family Member Looks On.

Sixty-eight percent of nurses experience a conflict at work at least once a week, according to a 2023 American Nurses Association report. This statistic highlights the pervasive nature of conflicts within the nursing profession and underscores the need for nurses to learn effective conflict resolution skills.

Conflict resolution in nursing is essential to maintaining a harmonious work environment and ensuring that patients receive the highest level of care. By learning and implementing effective conflict resolution strategies, nurses can manage and resolve disputes quickly and efficiently, which can lead to better teamwork, increased job satisfaction, and improved patient outcomes.

Conflicts in Nursing Practice

Conflicts in nursing refer to disagreements or clashes that arise between nurses and other health care professionals, patients, or families.

These conflicts can stem from any of a number of sources. Frequent issues and sources of conflict in nursing include:

Workload and Staffing Levels: Nurses often face conflicts due to high patient-to-nurse ratios, which can lead to burnout and stress.
Scheduling Issues: Conflicts can arise from unpredictable or unfair scheduling practices, including mandatory overtime and rotating shifts.
Communication Breakdowns: Miscommunication between nurses, doctors, and other health care staff can lead to errors and misunderstandings.
Role Clarity: Disagreements about roles and responsibilities, especially in multidisciplinary teams, can create tension.
Patient Care Decisions: Differences in opinions regarding patient care plans or ethical dilemmas can cause conflicts among staff members.
Professional Recognition: Lack of recognition or appreciation for their work can lead nurses to feel dissatisfied with their work environment.
Interpersonal Relationships: Personality clashes with colleagues or supervisors can create a stressful work environment.
Resource Allocation: Limited resources, such as insufficient medical supplies or equipment, can lead to conflicts over priorities and usage.
Policy and Procedure Compliance: Disagreements about adhering to hospital policies or procedures can cause friction.
Cultural Differences: Diverse backgrounds and beliefs among staff can lead to misunderstandings and conflicts.
Work-Family Conflict: The demands of a nurse’s job can interfere with their family responsibilities, or vice versa, creating stress and tension.

Addressing these issues typically requires improving communication, ensuring fair workload distribution, offering support and recognition, and fostering a collaborative and respectful work environment.

Resolving Conflicts in Nursing to Generate Positive Change

When a conflict goes unmanaged or unresolved in a workplace, it can cause work disruptions, poor performance, tardiness, absenteeism, low staff morale, reduced motivation, increased psychological stress, and burnout, and it can negatively impact the overall productivity of the organization.

However, the conflict itself is not inherently problematic. When a conflict is resolved well, it can be the starting point for positive changes in a nursing workplace. When it is resolved or managed effectively, the conflict can foster innovation, creativity, stronger organizational relationships, and greater staff commitment, ultimately enhancing both the staff’s and the organization’s performance. It can also lead to new ideas, learning, and positive change.

In nursing, effective conflict resolution is linked to improved quality of care and fewer medication errors, while poor conflict management negatively affects nurses, the organization, and patient outcomes, according to an article published in Frontiers in Public Health.

What Is Conflict Resolution in Nursing?

Conflict resolution refers to the methods and processes used to facilitate a peaceful end to a conflict in the workplace. In nursing, it involves addressing and managing disagreements or disputes that arise among nurses, between nurses and patients, or between nurses and other health care professionals. Effective conflict resolution in nursing aims to restore a positive work environment and to maintain patients’ safety and the quality of their care.

Ineffective ways to deal with conflicts in nursing include:

Ignoring conflicts
Allowing tensions to escalate
Resorting to unprofessional behavior, such as gossiping or blaming others

Such approaches can lead to a toxic work environment, decreased morale, and compromised patient care. Nurses make up the largest group of health care professionals, which means they frequently encounter complex issues that can lead to conflicts. Health care organizations that employ active and constructive conflict management techniques are likely to see positive outcomes for nurses, patients, other health care workers, and the organization as a whole.

Why Nurses Need Conflict Resolution Skills

Nurses often operate in high-pressure, demanding environments where their efforts are frequently underappreciated despite their heavy workloads. Nurses commonly deal with irregular schedules, long workdays, and complex workplace relationships.

Nurses must maintain interpersonal relationships with a wide range of individuals, including patients, patients’ family members, supervisors, administrators (both medical and non-medical), coworkers, and other health care professionals. While these relationships are essential, they are often the root cause of interpersonal conflicts, especially when differing values or goals come into play.

A study published in Frontiers in Public Health in 2023 found that “emotionally intelligent nurses may experience greater job satisfaction” at least in part because their conflict resolution skills enable them to get along with other people.

Nurses need conflict resolution skills for several reasons:

Enhanced Team Collaboration: Nurses with effective conflict resolution skills are better able to communicate and cooperate with other team members, which is critical in a health care setting where teamwork is essential.
Improved Patient Care: Resolving conflicts promptly and effectively ensures that patients’ care is not disrupted and that patients receive the best possible care.
Reduced Stress and Burnout: By managing conflicts effectively, nurses can reduce their workplace stress and prevent burnout, which can lead to increased job satisfaction and retention.
Extended Professional Development: Learning and practicing conflict resolution skills contributes to nurses’ personal and professional growth, and enhances their ability to handle challenging situations.

Given the high likelihood of encountering conflicts during their careers, nurses should be well versed in strategies for managing and mitigating such conflicts. Honing their conflict resolution skills can help nurses address difficult issues constructively, and maintain a positive and productive work environment.

Best Practices for Conflict Resolution in Nursing

Consider the following best practices for nursing teams to implement to limit conflicts and help resolve them when they arise:

Foster Open Communication: Encourage open and honest communication among team members. Create a safe space where nurses feel comfortable expressing their concerns and opinions without fear of retribution. Active listening is crucial in understanding different perspectives and finding common ground.
Implement Structured Mediation Techniques: Use structured mediation techniques where a neutral third party facilitates the resolution process. This approach helps to address the underlying issues and find mutually acceptable solutions. Mediation can prevent conflicts from escalating and improve team dynamics.
Promote Empathy and Understanding: Encourage nurses to practice empathy and strive to understand the emotions and viewpoints of others. Empathy helps in building trust and reducing tensions, making it easier to resolve conflicts amicably.
Develop Clear Policies and Protocols: Establish clear policies and protocols for conflict resolution. Having predefined procedures helps all staff members manage conflicts consistently and fairly. Ensure that all staff members are aware of these policies and know how to access support when needed.
Encourage Collaboration and Teamwork: Promote a culture of collaboration and teamwork. Encourage nurses to work together to achieve common goals, and recognize the contributions of each team member. Collaborative environments are less prone to conflicts and more effective in resolving them when they occur.
Conduct Root-Cause Analysis: When conflicts arise, perform a root-cause analysis to identify the underlying issues. Addressing the root causes rather than just the symptoms can prevent conflicts from recurring and improve the overall functioning of the team.
Provide Conflict Resolution Training: Offer regular training programs on conflict resolution skills. Training helps nurses develop the necessary skills to handle conflicts effectively and reduces the likelihood of conflicts arising in the first place.
Maintain Professionalism and Respect: Be sure to approach all interactions with civility. Discourage unprofessional behaviors such as gossiping or engaging in personal attacks, and encourage a culture of mutual respect.
Monitor Progress: After resolving a conflict, follow up with the involved parties to verify that the resolution was effective and sustainable. Monitoring progress helps in identifying any ongoing issues and provides an opportunity to make necessary adjustments.

By implementing these best practices, nursing teams can effectively manage and resolve conflicts, which can lead to a more positive work environment and better patient care outcomes.

Examples of Conflict Resolution in Nursing

A 2023 literature review published in the Nursing Journal of Malang that looked at 92 articles on nursing conflicts in the United States and abroad found that the key factors causing conflicts in health care settings include:

Work stress
Low job satisfaction and motivation
Poor coordination
Lack of empathy in interdisciplinary collaboration (collaboration between doctors and nurses, for example)
Toxic leadership

The same review found that the main parties involved in resolving conflicts are nurse managers, nurses, doctors, and department heads — which speaks to the need for nurses at all stages of their careers to learn interdisciplinary conflict resolution skills.

Here are three examples of conflict resolution in nursing.

Example 1: Addressing Interpersonal Conflicts Among Nurses

Nurses sometimes disagree about the best way to distribute patient care responsibilities, leading to tension and affecting their teamwork.

A 2023 study published in the Journal of Nursing Management explored strategies for resolving interpersonal conflicts among nursing staff. The study highlighted the use of mediation techniques, where a neutral third party — such as a nurse leader or mediator — facilitates discussions between the conflicting parties to reach a mutually agreeable solution. This approach was found to improve communication and collaboration within nursing teams.

Consider a hypothetical scenario in which Nurse A and Nurse B frequently argue about their respective duties and feel that the other is not pulling their weight. This conflict creates a stressful work environment and affects their ability to provide high-quality care to their patients.

A nurse leader or mediator could work to resolve this conflict through an impartial mediation session. After scheduling a private meeting with both nurses, the mediator might allow each nurse to express their views without interruption. Nurse A might voice concerns about feeling overwhelmed with tasks and perceiving a lack of support from Nurse B, while Nurse B might share feelings of being micromanaged and undervalued by Nurse A.

The nurse mediator would help both nurses identify the underlying issues contributing to the conflict, such as miscommunication, misunderstandings about job roles, and differences in work styles.

To develop a plan, the nurse manager would propose strategies to enhance their working relationship. These might include holding brief meetings at the start of shifts to discuss and clarify each nurse’s duties, using a shared task list to ensure transparency and fair distribution of responsibilities, and encouraging open and respectful communication between them to promptly address any concerns. Both nurses would agree to these strategies and commit to improving their communication.

The plan would then be put into action, with the nurse manager periodically checking in with both nurses to ensure adherence to the strategies and to address any new issues that might arise. Any necessary adjustments to the plan would be discussed and implemented jointly to ensure continued harmony and effective teamwork.

Example 2: Resolving Conflicts With Patients and Families

Conflicts between nurses and their patients or their patients’ families can emerge for many reasons, so nurses must be prepared to manage and resolve them.

Consider a patient with a serious illness who is undergoing a treatment plan prescribed by their physician. The patient’s family believes that an alternative treatment would be more effective, based on information they have researched themselves. The patient is caught in the middle, feeling anxious and unsure about which treatment to pursue. In this case, the nurse team is following the physician’s orders but faces resistance from the patient’s family, which is causing the patient stress.

To work toward conflict resolution, a nurse leader or mediator might arrange a meeting with the family, the patient, and the health care team. The nurse leader may start by acknowledging the family’s concerns and the patient’s anxiety. The family and the patient would be given an opportunity to express their viewpoints and preferences regarding the treatment options without interruption. The nurse leader would then ask specific questions to understand the family’s preferred treatment and the reasons behind their preference.

By acknowledging the family’s concerns, providing clear information to the patient, and working together to develop a flexible and collaborative treatment plan, the conflict can be resolved.

In this scenario, the patient may feel supported and less anxious, the family heard and involved, and the nurse team empowered to continue providing care with a clear and agreed-upon plan. This conflict resolution approach ensures that the patient’s best interests are prioritized while maintaining open and effective communication between all parties involved.

Example 3: Work-Family Conflict and Effective Conflict Resolution Training Programs

Some nurses face challenges in balancing their paid work and their family responsibilities, which leads to a work-family conflict. This is a form of conflict where the pressures of performing multiple roles (in this case, switching between the role of a nurse and the role of a caregiver at home) can cause an individual to feel psychological tension and can make it difficult for them to meet the demands of one role while engaging in another.

A 2023 study in BMC Nursing examined the impact of conflict resolution training programs on nursing staff experiencing work-family conflicts. The study found that nurses who participated in these programs reported increased confidence in handling work-family conflicts and a decrease in workplace disputes due to reduced stress. The training included role-playing scenarios and workshops on effective communication and problem-solving techniques.

By understanding and applying these strategies, nurses can navigate conflicts more effectively, which can lead to a more supportive and cohesive work environment that ultimately benefits patient care.

Necessary Skills for Conflict Resolution in Nursing

Successful conflict resolution in nursing relies on a bundle of soft skills . Essential conflict resolution skills include:

Effective Communication: Clear and concise communication is paramount in conflict resolution. Nurses need to be able to articulate their thoughts and listen actively to understand the perspectives of others. Open communication helps in identifying the root causes of conflicts and finding mutually agreeable solutions.
Emotional Intelligence: This skill involves recognizing and managing one’s own emotions and those of others. Emotional intelligence helps nurses remain calm and composed during clashes or other difficult interactions, which can enable them to handle these stressful situations more effectively.
Empathy: Demonstrating empathy involves understanding and sharing the feelings of others. It allows nurses to build trust and rapport with their colleagues and patients, which is crucial in resolving conflicts amicably.
Problem-Solving Skills: Effective conflict resolution requires strong problem-solving skills. Nurses need to assess a situation, identify possible solutions, and implement the best course of action to resolve disputes.
Negotiation Skills: Negotiation involves discussing differences and reaching an agreement that satisfies all parties involved. Nurses must be adept at negotiating to find compromises that resolve conflicts without compromising patient care.
Critical Thinking: Critical thinking enables nurses to analyze conflicts from different angles and develop creative solutions. It involves evaluating information objectively and making reasoned decisions.
Patience and Tact: Conflict resolution often requires patience and the ability to handle delicate situations with sensitivity. Nurses must be patient in listening to all sides and tactful in their approach to resolving disputes.
Leadership Skills: Leadership involves influencing and guiding others toward a common goal. Nurses with strong leadership skills can effectively mediate conflicts and foster a collaborative work environment.

Developing these skills can significantly enhance nurses’ ability to resolve conflicts, which can lead to a more harmonious and efficiently run health care setting.