A Study of Bullying Against Nursing Students Hulya Karatas 1 * & Candan Ozturk 2 & Murat Bektas 3 1 PhD, RN, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatric Nursing, School of Health, Harran University, Turkey & 2 PhD, RN, Professor, Faculty of Health, Department of Nursing, Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, Turkey & 3 PhD, RN, Associate Professor, Faculty of Nursing, Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey. Introduction Bullying refers to repetitive aggressive actions that are in- tended to harm others and create inequality. Studies of school bullying began with Olweus’ work that was conducted in Scandinavian countries during the 1980s (Olweus, 1993). Soon afterward, school bullying became a widespread re- search topic, which was a subsequent starting point for bul- lying prevention programs. Most of these programs focus on primary and high school students (Mytton, DiGuiseppi, Gough, Taylor, & Logan, 2006). Although bullying is not a new concept, the bullying in- cidents that are often experienced in healthcare environments, application areas, and school environments as well as their negative effects have become increasingly serious. Regardless of the environment, bullying is an undesired and negative situation (Clarke, Kane, Rajacich, & Lafreniere, 2012). Nurs- ing education is composed of theory and practice. Social communication is particularly important in nursing educa- tion. A positive and collaborative relationship between fel- low students, scholars, nurses, patients, patient relatives, and other health staff directly affects the quality of patient care given by nurses. Exposure to bullying negatively affects the communicative, collaborative and decision-making processes (Vessey, Demarco, Gaffney, & Budin, 2009). Bullying against hospital nurses and bullying against university students are well-recognized phenomena and widely discussed topics of research. However, nursing students’ exposure to bullying has not been sufficiently explored (Arslantas, Adana, Bagci, & Ayva, 2012; Celebiog ˘lu, Akpinar, Ku ¨c ¸u ¨ kog ˘lu, & Engin, 2010; Celik & Bayraktar, 2004; Ergol & Kurtuncu, 2013; Palaz, 2013). Workplace bullying and harassment relate to horizontal bullying. Bullying is an umbrella term that encompasses horizontal bullying, harassment, verbal abuse, mobbing, work- place bullying, and aggressiveness (Curtis, Bowen, & Reid, 2007; Vessey et al., 2009). Few studies have examined both workplace bullying and school bullying (Arslantas et al., 2012; Celebiog ˘ lu et al., 2010; Clarke et al., 2012; Cooper & Curzio, 2012; Ergol & Kurtuncu, 2013; Hakoja ¨rvi, Salminen, & ABSTRACT Background: Many institutions have conducted research on the subject of bullying. The literature includes many studies of the effects of widespread bullying among primary and secondary school students. Bullying against hospital nurses and also bullying against university students are well-known and frequently dis- cussed research topics. Yet, the exposure of nursing students to bullying has not been sufficiently explored, and few studies have focused on the issue of bullying against nursing students. Purpose: The aim of this study is to examine bullying against nursing students, including the rate of bullying, types of bullying, and responses to the negative effects of bullying. Methods: This study was conducted on 202 nursing students (including sophomores, juniors, and seniors) during the 2013Y2014 academic year. The participation rate was 88.5%. The Negative Attitudes Scale was used to collect data, and descriptive statistics were used in data analysis. Results: Participants were evenly distributed between women (49.5%) and men (50.5%). The median age of participants was 21.58 T 2.28 years; the frequency of bullying was 78.1%. The types of bullying were pejorative statements about the nursing profession (11.3%); low grades used as a form of punishment (9.9%); work, homework, and job rotation used as punishment in lieu of training (9.4%); impossible workloads (9.0%); and the spreading of rumors and gossip (7%). Conclusions/Implications for Practice: This study indicates that the participants were exposed to high levels of bullying. As exposure to bullying negatively affects the job attitudes of nursing students, further studies are necessary to develop strategies to prevent horizontal bullying. KEY WORDS: bullying, nursing, nursing student, bullying in nursing student. ORIGINAL ARTICLE The Journal of Nursing Research h VOL. 00, NO. 0, MONTH 2016 1 Accepted for publication: August 7, 2015 *Address correspondence to: Hulya Karatas, PhD, RN, Department of Pediatric Nursing, School of Health, Harran University, Sanliurfa, Turkey. Tel: +90 (414) 3183205; Fax: +90 (414) 3183203; E-mail: hulya.karatas35@gmail.com The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Cite this article as: Karatas, H., Ozturk, C., & Bektas, M. (2016). A study of bullying against nursing students. The Journal of Nursing Research, 00(0), 00Y00. doi:10.1097/jnr.0000000000000144