Grant: Operating Grant

In health care, staff shortages and recruitment and retention problems are widely recognized. Our research indicates that psychological harassment among health care aides undermines the quality of patient care and further accelerates the cycle of staff turnover. Harassment, if left unchecked, will inevitably exacerbate existing recruitment and retention problems and thereby have long-term economic consequences for our health care system. The proposed research builds upon the team's success in establishing the interactive processes of Participatory Theatre (PT) as a crucial psychosocial resource among health care aides to recognize, name, and address psychological harassment. We will employ the same theatre-based method to explore employee-to-employee harassment with two more occupational groups of caregivers. Our research examines harassment through a participatory research approach. PT scenarios depicting harassment experienced by aides, LPNs, and RNs will be developed in a series of workshops and then performed to a larger audience of these caregivers. The study will evaluate the impact of the PT workshops using ethnographic techniques. Findings will reach the wider caregiving community through production of a video based on the workshops. With widespread shortages in health care workforces across the country, and high rates of turnover in frontline caregivers in particular, ethical communicative practices in health care workplaces, will have significant implications for the economics of health care.