Frequency and characteristics of patient violence against healthcare providers in emergency and psychiatric care settings
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14528/snr.2016.50.4.128Keywords:
violence, nurses, patients, rescuers, distributionAbstract
Introduction: Patient violence against health professionals is one of the most disturbing problems faced by health workers. The study aimed to identify the rates of occurrence and types of adverse events perpetrated by patients to which healthcare workers are exposed in emergency and inpatient psychiatric care settings. Methods: The study was based on a non-experimental quantitative method. The convenience non-random sample, consisting of 197 participants, was selected for study purposes. The structured Perception of Prevalence of Aggression Scale questionnaire was used as a research instrument. The survey was conducted from June to October 2015. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, factor analysis (the method of direct oblimin factor rotation), Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis test. Results: The pervasiveness of aggression in acute psychiatric and other mental health settings has been documented. The health personnel in psychiatric settings experience higher rates of mild (U = 2092.00, p = 0.008) and severe (U = 1685.50, p = 0.000) patient violence than other respondents. The most vulnerable group includes the respondents with lower education and those working in shifts. Women are more likely to be victims of sexual aggression than men (U = 3962,00, p = 0.033). It was established that the respondents had no or little training regarding the management of potentially violent patients (x = 2.8, s = 1.186). Discussion and conclusion: As the health professionals working in psychiatric settings and emergency units are often confronted with patient aggressive or violent behaviour, further research is needed to establish the effectiveness of intervention or management strategies on the rate of aggression or violence of patients.Downloads
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