Nurse leadership in promoting and supporting civility in health care settings: A scoping review

AIM: This scoping review aimed to identify the existing evidence on how nurse leaders promote and maintain civility amongst nurses in health care settings. BACKGROUND: Research on managing workplace incivility in nursing, a prevalent and concerning issue worldwide, recommends nurse leaders to command cultural change through strong leadership and civility interventions. However, there is very little empirical evidence summarizing and analysing how nurse leaders pragmatically achieve civility, and combat workplace incivility, in the health care setting. EVALUATION: A scoping review was undertaken using the electronic databases CINAHL, Emerald Insight, MEDLINE, PsychINFO, PubMed and Scopus. Google Scholar was used to search for grey literature. KEY ISSUES: The eight studies included in this review describe how nurse leaders promote and maintain civility under four key themes: (1) creating a shared vision, (2) educating self and others, (3) fostering accountability and (4) providing support. CONCLUSION: The review provides an overview of commonly used strategies and actions that pragmatically promote and maintain civility in the health care setting by nurse leaders, while also highlighting areas of future research needed to strengthen the evidence base. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: It is important for nurse leaders to gain an understanding of evidence‐based practices when addressing workplace incivility in order to address this prevailing problem for the future and safety of nurses moving forward.