Workplace Harassment

This project is a theatre-based intervention to address workplace harassment among care workers in Saskatchewan’s restructured health care system. The participants are the foot-soldiers of acute and end-of-life care, feeding, toileting, dressing, medicating, and comforting patients in hospitals, nursing homes, and individuals’ residences.

Watch the video of the Participatory Theatre forum to address workplace harassment among Saskatchewan's direct healthcare workers.

Learn more about the project here:

https://research-groups.usask.ca/whresearchproject/

Funding

Elizabeth Quinlan (PI), Tracey Carr. Intervening in Workplace Harassment with Participatory Theatre: A Critical Realist Evaluation. Social Sciences and Humanities Council. Insight Grant. ($299,000) 2020-2024.

Elizabeth Quinlan (PI), Beth Bilson, Isobel Findlay & Ann-Marie Urban. Ameliorating Workplace Harassment among Caregivers: Fostering Communicative Action and Ethical Practice through Participatory Theatre. Canadian Institutes for Health Research Operating Grant. ($228,000). 2014-2017.

Outputs

Quinlan, E., Robertson, S., Urban, A-M., Findlay, I., Bilson, B. 2019. Ameliorating workplace harassment among direct caregivers in Canada’s health care system: A theatre-based intervention. Work, Employment, and Society. 34 (4). 626-643.
Elizabeth Quinlan, Susan Robertson, Tracey Carr, Angie Gerrard. 2019. Workplace Harassment Interventions and Labour Process Theory: A Critical Realist Synthesis of the Literature. Sociological Research Online.

https://doi.org/10.1177/1360780419846507

Tracey Carr, Elizabeth Quinlan, Susan Robertson, & Angie Gerrard. 2017. Adapting realist synthesis methodology: The case of workplace harassment interventions. Research Synthesis Methods, 8 (4). 496-505.

Critical Realist Evaluation (CRE) Methodology

CRE is a theory-driven approach to evaluating complex social interventions, with the aim of producing mid-range theories—theories that remain close to the empirical phenomenon but allow for generalizations. CRE asks the following questions: “what works, how, for whom, in what circumstances and to what extent?” CRE works incrementally by testing theory empirically and through rigorous review of previously conducted interventions to reveal how and why interventions are effective (or not). To initiate the development, testing and refinement of mid-range theory explaining how harassment interventions work, for whom, and under what circumstances, a synthesis of relevant literature was conducted. The review and synthesis methods are explained in the following:

Tracey Carr, Elizabeth Quinlan, Susan Robertson, & Angie Gerrard. 2017. Adapting realist synthesis methodology: The case of workplace harassment interventions. Research Synthesis Methods, 8 (4). 496-505.