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Background and Purpose: The importance of healthy work environments has received attention. Health care organizations are plagued with conflict which is detrimental to work environments. Thus, conflict must be studied. The purpose of this article is to describe the testing of a measure of conflict. Methods: A survey was used to evaluate the psychometric properties. The sample consisted of 430 nurses at an academic medical center. Results: Using principal component analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation, a six-factor solution (30 items) that explained 74.3% of variance emerged. Coefficient alpha ranged from .95 to .81. Correlations with existing scales supported construct validity (r 5 2.32-2.58). Conclusions: The results are encouraging. Use of the scale may provide insight into the impact of conflict on patient, staff, and organizational outcomes.
Keywords: work process; interpersonal incompatibility; intragroup conflict
Increasingly, nurse managers are devoting their efforts to creating healthy work environments, one in which the health care team works together to deliver quality patient care and create an atmosphere conducive to healing for patients and wellbeing for nurses (Miracle, 2008). Conflict is "a dynamic process that occurs between interdependent parties as they experience negative emotional reactions to perceived disagreements and interference with the attainment of their goals" (Barki & Hartwick, 2004, p. 234). Unfortunately, health care organizations are riddled with conflict (Briles, 2008), and Nelson (2012) maintained that over the past decade conflict seems to have accelerated across all health care settings. Thus, the purpose of this study is to describe the testing and psychometric properties of a new scale designed to measure intragroup conflict as disagreement, interference, and negative emotion over the task, the task process, and interpersonal incompatibilities.
The measurement of conflict is significant because of its negative impact on staff, patient, and organizational outcomes and the nursing work environment. According to Gerardi (2004), the direct costs of conflict to the organization include decreased managerial productivity because of time spent on resolving conflict, turnover costs, disability/ stress claims, and costs associated with increased care expenditures for patients with preventable poor or adverse outcomes. The indirect costs of conflict include loss of team morale, motivation for organizational change, damaged workplace relationships, and unresolved tensions that lead to future conflicts; increased incidence of disruptive behavior by staff; and emotional costs...