conflict in hospital setting: managers’ and staffs’ viewpoints

Background: conflict is a continuous challenge in hospitals. due to the nature of the treatment team, identifying conflicts in hospitals is one of the managers’ primary and essential tasks. objectives: the current study examined the level and causes of conflicts between hospital employees and managers. methods: the current descriptive-analytical study was conducted in 2018 - 2019 on a random sample of 320 hospital staff and managers. data were collected by self-administered questionnaires. descriptive statistics, t test, and anova were used in spss version 15 for data analysis. results: the mean conflict scores showed that perceived conflict between staff and managers was the highest for nursing staff (4.17 ± 0.94), which was statistically significant. in contrast, paraclinical staff reported the least conflict with managers (2.94 ± 0.88). nursing staff noted that the most critical cause of conflicts between employees and managers was “the unfair distribution of human resources”. in contrast, from managers’ perspective, “non-compliance with process/standards/regulations of the hospital” was the most important source of conflict. there were meaningful associations between marital status, job experience, and age, and conflict levels (p < 0.05). conclusions: various reasons can cause conflicts in different parts of the hospital. the findings provide a clear vision for managers about the causes of conflicts, which must be addressed successfully.