Conflict Among Colleagues: Health Care Providers Feel Undertrained and Unprepared to Manage Inevitable Workplace Conflict

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In the health care sector, intercollegial conflict is inevitable. Such conflict may have an adverse effect on employee turnover, workplace morale, and patient safety and care. Conversely, skillful management of conflict may result in beneficial change and improvement. Improved conflict management (CM)/dispute resolution (DR) knowledge for health care professionals (HCPs) has been shown to reduce the negative impacts of conflict. This study aimed to determine whether HCPs feel equipped to manage collegial workplace conflict and whether they feel there is a need for CM training. An electronic survey was developed to determine the attitudes, experience, and background training HCPs have had with CM, as well as whether respondents felt they needed CM/DR training. The survey was emailed to 660 HCPs in 2013 at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ontario. The response rate was 46% (303 of 660). Of 303 respondents, 128 (42%) reported previous formal training in CM/DR, but only 80 of 303 (26%) felt adequately trained to manage conflict and resolve disputes in the workplace, with 59% believing they need more conflict training. Among respondents, 76% wanted to see these skills incorporated into their own career training opportunities, but only 34% were aware of courses available to improve their CM/DR skills, and 50% stated they would be interested in taking such courses; 79% wanted to see these skills incorporated into medical school curricula. This needs assessment survey found that most HCPs did not believe that they have adequate training to manage workplace conflict comfortably, and they felt more training is needed in CM/DR.