title: Reporting peer wrongdoing in the healthcare profession: the role of incompetence and substance abuse information.
abstract: This article reports an analysis of the thinking processes nurses use when making decisions to report peer wrongdoing. Nurses (N=120) were asked to provide subjective probability estimates of the likelihood that they would report a hypothetical coworker for substance abuse and/or incompetence related to practice. Data were analyzed using formal inference-based recursive modeling (FIRM). Findings confirm that when considering workplace wrongdoing, nurses view working under the influence of any type of substance to be a very serious offense. More interesting, nurses combined incompetence and substance-abuse cues in complex ways, possibly due to the critical-thinking skills acquired during their education and practice.
authors.affiliation: College of Nursing, University of South Florida, 12901 Bruce B. Downs Boulervard, Tampa, FL 33612-4766, USA. jbeckste@hsc.usf.edu
authors.forename: Jason W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Beckstead
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards; D003463:Cues; D003663:Decision Trees; D005260:Female; D005431:Florida; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009726:Nurses / Q000523:psychology*; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D010379:Peer Group; D011363:Professional Impairment; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000517:prevention & control*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013850:Thinking; D035642:Whistleblowing / Q000523:psychology*; D017132:Workplace / Q000523:psychology