Running Head: FAMILY CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Family Conflict Resolution

Joshua Jacopetti, Maneet Kaur, Michael Figueroa, and Don Vieira
California State University, Stanislaus

FAMILY CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Family Conflict Resolution

Conflict always has negative views and connotations to the world. People try to avoid
conflict at all costs because it may be uncomfortable or create a hostile environment. Yoder-Wise
(2015) states, Conflict is a disagreement in values or beliefs within oneself or between people.
This is why conflict resolution is such a necessity in the medical field. We work in collaboration
with many different ethnicities, beliefs and upbringings. All these mixed individuals and
personalities will result in conflict sooner or later. All medical personnel who will experience
conflict in one way or another need to know how to approach and resolve conflict in a timely
manner. This is important when it comes to dealing with patients and their families as well.
Yoder-Wise (2015) also states that conflict has the potential to cause harm if unresolved. When
conflict resolution is the determining factor in an individuals health it becomes increasingly
important to know how to perform conflict resolution with peers, subordinates and even more
importantly the families. A hostile work environment can lead to undesired outcomes with
patient care as well as high turnover rate. Patients deserve to be cared for in a professional
environment and proper conflict resolution in the nursing field allows for this to occur.
Yoder-Wise (2015), defines conflict as a disagreement in values or beliefs within oneself
or between people that causes harm or has the potential to cause harm. Folger, Poole, and
Stutman (2012) add that conflict results from the interaction of interdependent people who
perceive incompatibility and the potential for interface (Yoder-Wise 2015). Conflict in a
workplace, within a group, or between individuals stimulates change that can be either beneficial
or detrimental. In the world of nursing, there are many different types of conflict. The
professional healthcare team undergoes constant change and includes many individuals from
different disciplines. Conflict within the healthcare team is unavoidable and must be dealt with

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in a professional manner to benefit the well-being of the involved patient. Also when dealing
with family wants versus what is in the patients best interest causes turmoil.
There are three different types of conflict discussed in the literature. These include
intrapersonal conflict, interpersonal conflict, and organizational conflict. Intrapersonal conflict is
conflict that occurs within ones self. Intrapersonal conflict arises when an individual is faced
with a situation where they are to either act in a way or do something that they would not
normally do. A persons standards, morals, and values usually come in to question when faced
with interpersonal conflict.
Interpersonal conflict is conflict that arises between either two individuals or a group of
individuals. According to Yoder-Wise (2015), interpersonal conflict is the most common type
of conflict and transpires between and among patients, family members, nurses, physicians, and
members of other departments. Conflicts that occur focus on a difference of opinion, priority, or
approach with others. Interpersonal conflict is noted to be the type of conflict to inspire the
most change. The reason being is that interpersonal conflict often involves a group of
individuals and is reported to supervisors and managers who are then forced to implement
change in order to satisfy all parties involved. This is the type of conflict that also arises between
family and the healthcare team. This is the one of the hardest types of conflict to control
especially with a difficult family member or loved one.
Organizational conflict is the third and final type of conflict discussed in the literature.
Organizational conflict arises when discord exists about policies and procedures, personnel codes
of conduct, or accepted norms of behavior and patterns of communication (Yoder-Wise, 2015).
One of the most common organizational conflicts that nurses encounter almost on a daily basis is
staffing issues. Department heads, supervisors, and managers seem to struggle with ensuring that

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their units are sufficiently staffed with enough nurses to complete the shift. On the other end,
nurses take on the burden of extra patients and work overtime to compensate. Another common
cause of organizational conflict arises from lack of effective communication and communication
breakdown.
Conflict resolution can be approached in several ways. The first website studied was at
Mediate.com, which was an article called Conflict Management Training for Health Care
Professionals, by Deborah Geradi. The article appeared in AC Resolution, the quarterly
magazine of the association of conflict resolution spring 2003. The author is a mediator and
healthcare dispute consultant. The author is also a critical care nurse, with 15 years of experience
in academics. She has trained over five thousand medical professionals in conflict resolution
techniques. The purpose of this site is to inform the healthcare worker about conflict resolution
and how to become a better conflict manager as well what not do in conflict situations. The site
provides guidelines as well as includes things to avoid when trying to resolve a conflict. The
author has her personal email as well as online access to other articles she has written in her
personal website. The article is from 2003 but still has relevant and applicable data with
instructions to being a more developed conflict resolution individual. The site itself is well
maintained and easily accessible. With a navigation tool bar that includes an open search of the
internet and site, as well as drop down menus to search other articles, in regards to conflict
resolution.
The author of the second article is Jeffery Kaufman and is published on an online journal
at the Southern Illinois University website. The purpose of this webpage is for research,
development, and information for a scholastic website. The article on this site provides a more in
depth look in conflicts from a nursing resolution standpoint. Its a how to of what is needed to

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resolve conflict as well as what prevents conflict resolution in the medical feel from being
obtained. For example egocentric behavior or competitive nature between medical professionals.
The data is objective but gives an outline to allow an individual to perform conflict resolution so
patients receive the best care that is available to them in the medical setting. This website gives
access to a conflict online journal. The site gives no way to contact the author or the publisher of
the journal but gives the option to contact the library staff of the college directly. This website is
updated on a regular basis with new articles and journal entries being it is a scholastic website
and database. The article analyzed is from a 2011 journal issue. The website is well maintained
however leaves much to be desired in terms of accessibility. The article itself is difficult to find
without the link but the site has a significant amount of data on conflict resolution. Overall a
good article but would not be a top choice in this matter.
Another site that was used was The College of Nurses of Ontarios guideline for
Conflict Prevention and Management. This site is extremely helpful in providing ways to help
deal with conflict resolution. This guideline provides key factors, prevention strategies, and
management strategies in regards to nurse-client conflict, conflict with colleagues, workplace
conflict, and the role of nurses in formal leadership positions. Conflict is an unavoidable aspect
of life and the more educated and prepared one is when it comes to dealing with conflict, the
better the outcome. The College of Nurses of Ontarios guideline also gives a decision tree that
guides the resolution process.
The College of Nurses of Ontarios website meets all the credible criteria according to the
University of Marylands Library. After careful evaluation of the College of Nurses of Ontarios
online guideline, it meets all of the criteria of UOMs evaluation checklist. The guideline is part
of CNOs standards of care and was copyrighted by CNO in 2009. There are no individual

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authors noted, the organization is the author. The URL for the website is a non-profit
organization and ends with .org. According to CNO, the College of Nurses of Ontario is the
governing body for registered nurses (RNs), registered practical nurses (RPNs) and nurse
practitioners (NPs) in Ontario, Canada. The guideline for conflict prevention and management
clearly states CNOs mission and vision on the second page. According to CNO, their mission is
to protect the publics right to quality nursing services by providing leadership to the nursing
profession in self-regulation. CNOs vision is excellence in nursing practice everywhere in
Ontario (CNO 2009). The website provides clear and reliable up to date contact information.
The Advance Healthcare Network for Nurses (AHNN) provided another source for
information in Resolving Workplace Conflict that ties directly to healthcare conflict issues.
Efficient and streamline healthcare delivery is contingent upon a work environment that allows
staff, other departments, and clients that runs smoothly. This system is interrupted when conflict
arises between the groups involved. In order to continue forward and restore stability the group
must find ways to resolve the issues at hand. This is achieved with effective and functional
communication between the involved parties. The model for conflict resolution described by
AHNN utilizes Emotional Reactions and Rational Reactions. Emotional reactions yield:
avoidance, compete, and give up responses. Rational reactions yield: accommodate,
compromise, and collaborate reactions. The chart also expresses the outcomes of each reaction
in which collaborate reaction yields a win-win situation. Effective resolution must address both
substantive workplace issues and the emotional concerns of those involved. This article met
some of the criteria that such as content and knowledge related to effective communication, the
site was somewhat difficult to access and not many sources were easy to find.

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The last sources that were looked included an article from the Practice Nurse Journal and
the Contemporary Nurses Journal. The article by Taylor (2014) took managing conflict to
another level when conflict and aggression are intertwined together. Conflict is always talked
about but rarely is conflict that escalates into physical violence discussed. Although verbal abuse
is common in the medical setting, physical violence has been on an upward trend. The factors
are relatively the same and involve: Circumstances, system and organizational problems,
environment, patient factors, and staff factors. This source brought to light a lot in regards to
information regarding dealing with conflict. The article by Losa Iglesias (2012), was a crosssectional survey that looked at conflict in both the educational and clinical settings. It was
evidenced based responses from Nurses in the field. This article concluded that the most
frequently used styles of conflict were compromise, competition, followed by avoidance and
accommodation. These were more of a persuasive articles on management than a guideline that
could be accessed easily. The content criteria was met however. These articles were the least
helpful of the sources that was found, but were good evidenced based research.
Out of the articles used the CNO website was the most helpful. The website objective had
clear information, and is similar to the California Nurses Association website. The CNO website
was last updated on February 17, 2015. The website is well maintained and there are no issues
with linking websites. Overall, the website appears to be well maintained, well organized, well
designed, and very easy to use. All of the articles and journals were easy to find and their
membership criteria and benefits were easy to find. This is a great website to find articles and
journals related to conflict resolution. The guideline gives nurses a great layout of preventing
and managing conflict resolution. The decision tree can be applied to situation where conflict
resolution is needed. A situation that occurred during the nursing program for one of the writers

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could have benefited from this decision tree. During the nursing program, a nurse was faced with
a patient and a very active family. The nurse was giving the patient the morning medications with
the family at beside. The family had been present throughout the morning, and the nurse assumed
it was ok to distribute the medications to the patient. During the medication administration the
patient interrupted the nurse and asked the loved one to step outside. The nurse was confused and
the patient responded, It was rude of you to not ask if I was comfortable with my medications
being told in front her. The nurse then apologized for the mistake and would not let that happen
again in regards to any visitors to this patient. The patient was on certain antidepressants that
were not know to family members and had not wanted them to know. Using the guideline tree
from the CNO website, the nurse had followed appropriate path to quell the conflict. There was
no imminent danger to the patient, so care was continued, the situation was then reported off to
the charge nurse. The nurse did resolve the situation with the patient and family and
communicated this to the healthcare team.
Personal life conflict resolution varies with each situation and in whom the other
individual is. In regards to conflict with the spouse a wise man once stated, If you want to be
right, dont get married and the common, Happy wife, happy life. Therefore the
accommodation reaction comes to mind for one of the writers, especially when the spouse has a
law degree. If conflict is with a close friend the issue is open for discussion with consideration
taken and re-evaluated with the other party for a best possible outcome. This style is more of the
collaborative rational reaction which yields a win-win outcome. Other types of personal conflict
are not dealt with on a verbal level and it is left up to the other individual to see how much they
are willing to risk. Another author of this paper deals with conflict by collaborating directly with
those in conflict with. This is beneficial for all parties to be involved in the conflict resolution. It

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is important for conflicting parties to collaborate on solutions because this allows them to find
solutions that satisfy both sides. There is no reason to avoid conflict, and that avoiding conflict
only prolongs and worsens the issue. Also, when conflict arises in the work place, he always
puts his patients well-being before his own and advocates for his patients by being assertive
when dealing with conflict and approaching the situation with an open mind.
Whether its conflict between co-workers or conflict with a patients family member,
these guidelines gives nurses the tools needed to effectively deal with many situations.
Remember, It is easy to escalate, but hard to deescalate (Koga, 2013). So once all those
involved are calm and rational, the resolution process can effectively begin. This starts by
determining the source of conflict, how important are the issues, and is resolution urgent or can it
be delayed. This takes a conscious decision on behalf of all parties in order to move forward and
place the issue behind them (Stanton, 2015). Nurses understand that conflict can be an inevitable
process of healthcare when it comes to patient, families, and other members of the team,
therefore knowing conflict resolution techniques and access to tools to learn them is highly
essential.

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FAMILY CONFLICT RESOLUTION

References
College of Nurses of Ontario (2009). Practice Guideline: Conflict Prevention and Mangement.
Retrieved from http://www.cno.org/Global/docs/prac/47004_conflict_prev.pdf
Gerardi, D. (2003). Conflict Management Training for Health Care Professionals. ACResolution,
The Quarterly Magazine of the Association for conflict Resolution. Retrieved from
http://www.mediate.com/articles/gerardi4.cfm#top
Kaufman, J. (2011). Conflict management education in medicine: considerations for curriculum
designers. Online J Workforce Educ Dev. Retrieved from
http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1101&context=ojwed
Koga Institute (Producer). (2013). Robert Koga Memorial Video (Video podcast). Retrieved
From http://vimeo.com/85494032
Losa Iglesias, M. E, & Becerro De Bengoa Vallejo, R. (2012). Conflict Resolution Styles in the
nursing profession. Contemporary Nurse: A Journal of the Australian Nursing
Profession, 43(1), 73-80.
Stanton, K. (2015). Resolving workplace conflict. Advance Healthcare Network for Nurses.
Retrieved from http:nursing.advanceweb.com/Continuing-Education/CEArticles/Resolving- Workplace-Conflict.aspx
Taylor, K. (2014). Managing conflict. Practice Nurse, 44(10), 32-4.
Yoder-Wise, P. (2015). Leading and Managing in Nursing. (6th Ed.).