Introduction: Uncivil behaviors of clients including verbal attacks, irrational demands, and questioning employee competence can negatively affect service employees and may subsequently lead to job burnout and emotional exhaustion. Thus in this study, we explored the effect of client incivility on the work related conditions among nurses.
Methods: This is an applied, descriptive-analytical study was carried out on a number of 256 nurses working at Shahid Mohammadi Hospital in Bandar Abbas. The samples were selected by stratified random sampling method using Morgan Table. The research tools for data collection were Torkelson (2012), Rhee et al. (2017), Rahim et al. (2016), Lim and Lee (2011) and Huang and Lin (2019) questionnaires. The content validity of the questionnaires was assessed using experts’ opinions, and their reliability was tested by Cronbach's alpha coefficient. The data analysis was performed by Structural Equation Modeling (SEM methodology) and Amos Software.
Results: Uncivil behaviors of clients showed a positive significant effect on the job burnout (B= 0/43, t= 0/180) and emotional exhaustion (B= 0/62, t= 4/464) among nurses. Furthermore, we found that job burnout is positively associated with the intention to abandon the work (B= 0/32, t= 3/789). Moreover, emotional exhaustion of nurses due to the clients incivility had a positive significant effect on job performance (B = 0.46 and t = 3.780).
Conclusion: According to these findings, nurses are faced with uncivil behaviors may potentially experience job burnout and emotional exhaustion, and ultimately intend to leave their jobs. Accordingly, hospital managers and decision makers should provide training courses for nurses to deal with the uncivil behaviors of clients. Such measures could influence their job satisfaction as well as commitment.