Out of all of the people who are employed in healthcare facilities, nursing staff members are the most common targets of beatings and other violent physical assaults due to their close proximity to patients and visitors who sometimes become violent. The purpose of this article is to shed light on the topic of physical violence against nurses.
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Physical violence is an explosive epidemic, especially in hospitals and other healthcare settings. Workplace violence can be any act of physical violence, threats of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening, disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site (USDA, 1998).
Workers in the healthcare sector have increasingly become victims of violence at their jobs in recent years. Healthcare workers accounted for 45 percent of all reported non-fatal assaults resulting in lost work, according to a 2005 report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Prost, 2010).
These violent perpetrators are typically patients or emotionally disturbed family members. Nurses are often on the receiving end of physical assaults, because they are typically the first and most frequent medical personnel by the bedside of ill and sometimes angry or frustrated patients (Lothian, 2007).
The lion's share of the physical assaults against nursing staff has taken place in emergency departments and psychiatric units across the United States, but workplace violence also occurs with regularity in other healthcare settings. Patients have punched, kicked, groped, grabbed, and spit at their nurses. Others have thrown fecal matter and blood at nursing staff. Some reported being strangled, sexually assaulted or stuck with contaminated needles (Lothian, 2007).
Unfortunately, management and administration at numerous hospitals and healthcare facilities have tolerated physical violence from patients and visitors for many years. Nurses had been encouraged to deescalate these volatile situations and deal with assaults on their own. Nurses were sometimes discouraged from taking action and told that unruly and sometimes violent patients were part of the job (Lothian, 2007).
However, the tide is changing, albeit slowly. Some organizations are even urging nurses to have anyone who physically attacks them on the job prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. For instance, the Massachusetts Nursing Association now encourages nurses to press charges if they have been victimized.
How do we even begin to tackle the problem of physical violence against nursing staff in the workplace? Well, the entities and people who employ nurses need to get involved with a more hands-on approach. The best protection employers can offer is to establish a zero-tolerance policy toward workplace violence against or by their employees (OSHA, 2002). In other words, employers must stop making excuses for the fully oriented patients who inflict violence upon staff. Human resources personnel should also inform all employees of their rights to press charges.
How can healthcare workers protect themselves against workplace violence? Taking some personal initiative is recommended because nobody knows when nursing staff will be victimized next. Learn how to recognize, avoid, or diffuse potentially violent situations by attending personal safety training programs (OSHA, 2002). In addition, the presence of uniformed officers often deters or prevents physical violence against nurses.
Physical violence in healthcare is a serious problem that will not go away overnight. However, management needs to do their part by supporting nurses with zero-tolerance policies, and society needs to do its part by having more realistic expectations of healthcare facilities. After all, the hospital is not the fast-food restaurant where people can have it their way.
