Workplace Violence Against Nurses

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Violence against emergency Department Nurses
The U.S. Department of Justice survey showed that health care sector led all other sectors in the incidence of non-fatal workplace assaults and that nurses were the most likely of health care workers to be assaulted. [23]Assault rates are particularly high among Emergency Department (ED) nurses. [24] A study of 125 nurses at a regional medical center found that 82 percent of ED nurses had been physically assaulted at work during 2001. [25]
In a survey of Workplace Violence across 65 U.S. Emergency Departments key informants reported more than 3,461 physical attacks over 5-year period. [26]
In 2009, the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) surveyed ED nurses in U.S. nationwide and found that more than …show more content…

Paradoxically, the job sector with the mission to care for people appears to be at the highest risk of workplace violence. Nurses are among the most assaulted workers in the American workforce. Too frequently, nurses are exposed to violence – primarily from patients, patients’ families, and visitors. This violence can take the form of intimidation, harassment, stalking, beatings, stabbing, shootings, and other forms of assault. [24]
Psychological consequences resulting from violence may include fear, frustration, lack of trust in hospital administration, and decreased job satisfaction. Incidences of violence early in nurses’ careers are particularly problematic as nurses can become disillusioned with their profession. Violence not only affects nurses’ perspectives of the profession, but it also undermines recruitment and retention efforts which, in a time of a pervasive nursing shortage, threatens patient care. …show more content…

These features include, for example, decreased productivity, increased absenteeism, burnout, turn over, and financial losses; decreased staff morale and reduced quality of life; emotional reactivity such as anger, sadness, frustration, fear, self-blame; decreased job satisfaction; changes in relationship with the co-worker and family, and feelings of incompetence and guilt; leaving the profession; and direct/indirect financial burdens for the health economy and society as a whole.

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