CONFLICT MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES USED BY NURSE MANAGERS IN NORTHERN WEST BANK HOSPITALS

Abstract

Background

Conflicts are bound to happen in any healthcare setting, but in nursing, they are especially likely given the job’s diverse responsibilities, high workloads, and frequent interdepartmental interactions. Yet, conflict can be resolved in ways that enhance patient care, communication, and collaboration. When not managed effectively, future staff morale, teamwork, and patient outcomes can suffer. The purpose of this study was to identify the conflict management strategies used by nurse managers in government hospitals in the northern West Bank of Palestine and to assess whether there were differences in preferences on approaches based on demographic characteristics.

Methods Eighty-five nurse managers from six hospitals Rafidia, Al-Watani, Jenin, Salfit, Qalqilya Governmental Hospitals, and An-Najah National University Hospital participated in a quantitative descriptive cross-sectional study. Convenience sampling was used to choose the participants. The Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory-II (ROCI-II), which measures five conflict management strategies (collaborating, accommodating, competing, avoiding, and compromising), and demographic characteristics were the two sections of the self-administered questionnaire used to collect data between August and December 2025. Expert review was used to guarantee validity, and SPSS version 23 was used for statistical analysis (descriptive and inferential tests).

Results

The most popular conflict management techniques among nurse managers were accommodating (mean = 0.94) and competing (mean = 0.94), with avoiding (mean = 0.80), compromising (mean = 0.69), and collaborating (mean = 0.64) being the least popular. Years of managerial experience and conflict methods were shown to be significantly correlated (p < 0.05), especially for accommodating, competing, and compromise. Regarding the accommodating style, a significant gender difference was observed (p = 0.03), with female managers achieving higher scores. No statistically significant associations were found for age, educational attainment, marital status, job title, administrative training, income, or place of residence. Conclusions

Accommodating and Competing strategies are used by nurse managers in the Northern West Bank to manage conflict in most of the situations but less use Collaboration strategies that are more effective during conflict resolution. Nurse managers are more likely to use collaboration strategies than competing or avoiding strategies. Nurse managers use collaboration strategies more often in conflict situations that involve interpersonal factors such as negative emotions, or power dynamics.