Allied health professionals’ experiences of co-worker unprofessional behaviour and their reported speaking-up skills: a secondary analysis of a cross-sectional survey

Unprofessional behaviour among hospital staff is prevalent worldwide. Few studies have investigated the experiences of allied health hospital staff. The objective of our study was to examine the types and prevalence of unprofessional behaviour experienced by these staff as well as their self-reported speaking-up skills. We performed a secondary analysis of survey data from staff across seven hospitals. Approximately 92% (N=485; 95% CI, 89.6–93.9) of respondents experienced incivility or bullying at least once in the preceding 12 months, and 29.7% (N=157; 95% CI, 25.5–34.0) experienced incivility or bullying weekly to multiple times daily. Respondents who reported having speaking-up skills experienced less frequent incivility or bullying (OR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.35–0.81) than those staff without these skills. Speaking-up programmes may better support staff to address unprofessional behaviour if implemented as part of hospital-wide culture change interventions involving all hospital staff.