Workplace Violence

 

    Nurses deal with a variety of different types of patients, unfortunately, that comes with violent patients. Workplace violence is a major problem within a nurse’s career that is often not talked about because it can create a negative stigma surrounding the healthcare field. Workplace violence is described as, “violent acts, including physical assaults and verbal threats, directed toward persons at work or on duty.” 

 In the article “Addressing Workplace Violence and Creating a Safer Workplace”, it mentions that “healthcare workers are five times more likely to sustain a workplace violence injury than other professions.” This number is much larger, but many of the violent incidents that take place go unreported. There are several different reasons that there is so much violence in the healthcare setting. Some of these include families and patients who are under extreme physical and emotional stress and an unorganized and chaotic workplace setting that does not have the best interest of their nurses at heart. 

Another type of violence that can occur in the healthcare setting, is something called horizontal violence. This is violence that occurs between coworkers and it can range from bullying to threats to hazing. This is because some nurses believe that they know everything, so they tend to project that onto coworkers and try to minimize them and their work. Also, every nurse comes from a different background and tends to do the job for different reasons, even though they should all have the same goal, which should be to help people and the community. This can lead to arguments on patient care, microaggressions, and so much more.

Any type of workplace violence can have detrimental effects on a nurse. It can cause a nurse to live in fear, adds additional stress to an already stressful job, increase burnout, and influence patient care and care plans.  To help address workplace violence, there are a number of different things that can be done. Including training that allows nurses to improve communication leads to increased confidence and removes any barriers and stigma surrounding a nurse reporting any sort of violence. 

This is a short video, that describes different stories from nurses who have experienced workplace violence- from patients and collegues. 

This is a short video that has real nurses talking about different examples of bullying that can be seen in the nursing workplace. 

Resources: 

Jones, C. B., Sousane, Z., & Mossburg, S. (n.d.). PSNet. Addressing Workplace Violence and Creating a Safer Workplace. https://psnet.ahrq.gov/perspective/addressing-workplace-violence-and-creating-safer-workplace