Sexual harassment of religious Jewish nurses by patients and its relation to the ward's listening climate, care avoidance and quality of nursing care

Abstract

Aim: This study aimed to examine the associations between religious Jewish nurses' exposure to sexual harassment by patients, the ward's listening climate, the quality of nursing care and nurses' avoidance of therapeutic contact with harassing patients.

Background: A few studies have examined nurses' exposure to sexual harassment by patients, but this phenomenon has not been studied among religious Jewish nurses.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study of 85 nurses who study at a religious Jewish nursing school. Respondents completed self-administered structured questionnaires. Multiple regression analysis was performed to reveal antecedents of the quality of nursing care provided to sexually harassing patients.

Results: The more religious the nurses, the more they avoided therapeutic contact with harassing patients. The strongest predictor of reported quality of care for harassing patients was the avoidance of therapeutic contact. Forty-two per cent of the variance in reported quality of nursing care was explained by the employment type and by the avoidance of therapeutic contact, which was related to the nurses' level of religiosity.

Conclusions: Nurses' level of religiosity is related to the quality of care provided to sexually harassing patients.

Implications for nursing management: Nursing leadership must raise awareness of sexual harassment by patients and develop policy and implementation programmes with sensitivity to religious nurses.

Keywords: avoidance of care; listening; quality of care; religious nurses; sexual harassment.