Covert incivility: Challenges as a challenge in the nursing academic workplace

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a Neuman Systems Model-guided discussion of current knowledge associated with covert incivility in the nursing academic workplace. Organizing structure: The Neuman Systems Model provides a multiple discipline, systems perspective of the stressor covert incivility and levels of prevention interventions to counter it. Findings: Covert incivility is defined as a stressor that affects individual, group, community, and social systems’ intrapersonal, interpersonal, and extrapersonal levels of function. Two prominent examples of expressing covert incivility in academic settings are identified—pluralistic ignorance and passive aggression. Conclusions: The Neuman Systems Model can guide development and testing of primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention interventions targeted to covert incivility in the nursing academic workplace, as well as outcomes of the interventions. Clinical relevance: The Neuman Systems Model is a useful multiple discipline conceptual model for identification and testing of the effects of covert incivility in the nursing academic workplace.