Anger behaviour among professionals in a Norwegian hospital: antecedents and consequences for interprofessional cooperation

Abstract

The article is an examination of anger behaviour among professionals in a Norwegian hospital, how it develops in the interaction that takes place between the health professionals and the consequences of anger behaviour on work cooperation. The data comes from an ethnographic study of a Norwegian urban hospital and was gathered through interviews, observations and existing documents that were made available. Anger behaviour, in particular from doctors, is a major stress factor in the work day of nurses and has a negative impact on their work environment and professional cooperation and may even reduce the quality of patient care. To a large extent anger behaviour may be understood as an expression of strained interpersonal relationship where contextual factors serve to lower the threshold for keeping such feelings private.