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176773 Impact of written violence policies in educational settings on risk of physical assault against Minnesota educators

Monday, October 27, 2008: 11:00 AM

Denise M. Feda, PhD , Reg Inj Prev Res Center/Center Violence Prev and Control, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Susan G. Gerberich, PhD , MCOHS/RIRRC/CVPC, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Andrew D. Ryan, MS , Regional Injury Prevention Research Center, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Nancy M. Nachreiner, PhD, MPH , Reg Inj Prev Res Center/Center Violence Prev and Control, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Bruce H. Alexander, PhD , Regional Injury Prevention Research Center, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Timothy R. Church, PhD , Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Patricia M. McGovern, PhD, MPH , Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Multimedia recording
Purpose: Few school violence policies have been studied with quantitative methods to evaluate their impact on workplace violence. This study analyzed nine different written violence policies and their impact on work-related physical assault in educational settings.

Methods: Data were obtained from the Minnesota Educators' Study. Of 26,000 licensed educators, randomly selected from the Minnesota Department of Education's database, 6,180 eligible educators were enrolled in the comprehensive study. From this phase, cases (n = 372) who reported physical assaults within the last year, and controls (n = 1116) who did not, were included in the case-control study. Multivariate logistic regression analyses, using Directed Acyclic Graphs, were used to estimate risk of assault.

Results: Overall response rates for the full study were: Phase I, 84% (78% full survey); Phase II, 84% (78% full survey). The rate of physical assault per 100 educators per year was 8.3. Results of the adjusted multivariate model indicated decreased risk of physical assault were associated with awareness of policies regarding how to report sexual harassment, verbal abuse, and threat (OR 0.53; 95% CI: 0.30-0.95); assurance of confidential reporting of events (OR 0.67; 95% CI: 0.44-1.04); and zero tolerance for violence (OR 0.70; 95% CI: 0.47-1.04).

Conclusions: Awareness of policies, regarding how to report sexual harassment, threats or verbal abuse, assurance of confidential reporting, and zero tolerance for violence, in an educational setting, may help prevent work-related physical assault. This study better informs the quantitative impact that awareness of written violence policies have on physical assault risk.

Learning Objectives:
1) Identify prevalence and types of written violence policies in Minnesota schools. 2) Identify the magnitude and direction of risk or protection each policy has on the outcome of physical assault. 3) Discover a coherent trend awareness of policies has on the outcome of physical assault.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Nancy was the project director for the Minnesota Educators' study and is familiar with the study design and analysis. She also attended Denise's oral defense where part of the information for this presentation was given
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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