Table 1.

Themes and exemplars for Category 1: Bullying Behavior

Themes	Exemplars
Being ignored, avoided or isolated	“One nurse I had, and I’ve heard other stories, other people have had similar experience and seen it happen, but personally just this one who was just abrupt, she didn’t want to talk to me, she didn’t want – I had her patient, she wanted me to leave her alone and do my thing and just not like [bother] her. She wasn’t gonna answer any more than she had to.”
Witnessing non-verbal behaviors	“It’s a non-verbal thing. It’s a – it’s not a go away, it’s a ‘you again’ kind of look. It’s a – it’s an extra breath that you can hear. It’s a – it’s a way the movements suddenly turn a bit harsher and jerkier. It’s whipping the badge out, scanning it through the thing real fast as if you’re irritating. You know, it’s all those things that – the non-verbal signals that people use to communicate.”
Experiencing negative interactions	“As soon as the nurse that I was working with found out that I was a nursing student, um, it was like a night and day switch. Like one minute, ‘Oh hey, here’s – welcome to the job. Here’s how we do things around here.’ And then like night and day switch, just – I don’t – I don’t know how to describe it other than, ‘Well, you should know better.’ It’s like, ‘Well, I’m new. It’s like I got this job yesterday. And it’s like I’m new, I know – I shouldn’t know better.’ And, uh, just this attitude switch and then – and then when I didn’t meet that expectation there was back biting. There was talking about me just loud enough so that I could hear to the other nurses about how horrible I was. How – how – what a terrible nurse that I would be.”
Being denied an opportunity to learn	“Yeah, it was just, you know, simple things like putting in a Foley or something that a nursing student could do, [the clinical nurse] would do it really quick so that you wouldn’t get the opportunity, or you know, keep putting it off until you were at lunch, and they do it while you were gone.”
Being hazed	“She said she liked to see student nurses squirm. She wanted to see your reaction that way. She purposely did things a certain way so that student would feel uncomfortable.”
Being intimidated	“My nurse didn’t, like, ask me. She basically, like, told me you’re going to help me with this other patient that I wasn’t assigned to, which wouldn’t have been a problem, but I was in the middle with my patient. She was, like, a total pain, so I couldn’t just, like, leave her, you know? So I told the nurse, I was, like, okay, I’ll help you bathe your patient — or, she wanted me to bathe her patient or something. I was like I’ll help you with that in just a minute. And she made some comment, like, well, I’m gonna have to tell your instructor that you’re not helping in patient care, or, like, something like that.”