Sexual Harassment and Australian Registered Nurses

Abstract

Using a multi-method approach, this thesis examines sex-based and sexual harassment as perceived and experienced by Australian Registered Nurses (RN). The first phase of the research was a broadly based, exploratory survey questionnaire which served as a foundation for the second and third phases of the study. This initial phase and its analysis focused on the frequency and kinds of harassment the Registered Nurses described, as well as their responses and the affects of the harassment on them personally and professionally. ... The second phase of the study involved sixteen in-depth interviews that focused on how Registered Nurses acquire or process knowledge about harassment and how this knowledge is personally and socially reproduced. That is to say, how these RNs come to 'see' and 'understand' harassment; come to recognise harassment, label it, deal with it and interpret their action or inaction when confronted with it.