Hospital nurses’ communication overload and obstacles to risk and safety communication: The role of mandating

Abstract

Hospital nurses encounter a demanding workplace. Advancements in technology and continued staffing shortages increase and complicate the communication and organizational expectations and restrictions placed upon hospital nurses, although the organizational resources and support nurses are offered can remain unchanged, or worse, diminish. This study explores nurses’ experiences of workplace communication overload (CO), and their interpretations of how CO occurs alongside obstacles to risk and safety communication —a vital form of communication in hospital work. Using a combination of semi-structured, narrative interviews (N = 12) and focus groups (N = 8, 26 participants), and driven by a theoretical conceptualization of CO, this study reveals that the most fundamental obstacle to nurses’ risk and safety communication at work is the practice of mandating. When nurses are mandated, they are forced towork overtime, exceeding the number of hours agreed upon in their contracts, due to (continued) staffing shortages. Nurses explain that mandating, as a routine organizational practice, creates general states of feeling overwhelmed in everyday work life, which is a central theoretical dimension of CO. This state of feeling overwhelmed strips nurses of their patience and cognitive capacity to adequately process and respond to incoming risk and safety messages, and/or grasp their level of importance. Study implications are offered.