Aligning the AACN Essentials with civility and healthy work environments: A competency-based learning activity

Fostering civility and healthy work environments (HWEs) are core expectations of professional nursing practice.

Exposure to incivility and harm from unhealthy work environments compromises nurse well-being, increases risks to patient safety, and erodes organizational culture.

This article demonstrates how the AACN Essentials (2021) provide a competency-based framework for integrating civility and HWE principles into prelicensure nursing education. Each domain, competency, and sub-competency is aligned with observable behaviors, performance expectations, and assessment criteria related to civility and HWEs. An active-learning, competency-based, activity engages students in independent reflection and collaborative application, culminating in formative assessments aligned with AACN Essentials domains and sub-competencies to evaluate learners' ability to identify uncivil behaviors, analyze their impact, and propose evidence-based strategies that promote civility and HWEs.

Explicitly aligning civility and HWE concepts with competency-based performance expectations and assessment methods is essential for learner evaluation, professional formation, and readiness for practice.