142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

300098
When violence is “part of the job:” Effects on workers, research approaches, and researchers

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Wednesday, November 19, 2014 : 11:02 AM - 11:18 AM

Ashley Schoenfisch, MSPH, PH.D. , Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC
Lisa Pompeii, PhD , Epidemiology, Human Genetics & Environmental Sciences, The University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston, Houston, TX
Hester J. Lipscomb, MPH, Ph.D. , Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC
John Dement, CIH, PhD , Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC
Background/Objective: Patient and visitor perpetrated violence against healthcare workers (type II) is a well-recognized, growing public health concern. We describe various effects of hospital workers’ perception of type II violence as “part of the job.”

Methods: Across 6 acute-care hospitals, data were collected through surveys, telephone interviews, focus groups, and key informant interviews.

Results: Hospital workers described violence as “part of the job.” Influences of this perception on workers’ social support and job satisfaction were observed and highlighted the lack of coordinated institutional efforts to address type II violence from an occupational safety perspective. The perception influenced the research approach and interpretation of findings. Type II violent events based on the study definition were not always reported by participants who perceived them as “part of the job.” Researchers were struck by participants’ composure recounting experiences of dangerous situations, including violent encounters that researchers and other study participants found clearly traumatic. Workers’ experiences supported their concerns and recommendations for prevention, mitigation, and follow-up of violent events to ensure worker and patient well-being. However, various agendas within complex healthcare systems create barriers to making even simple, albeit urgently needed, changes to enhance workers’ safety.

Conclusions: Currently, there is a general lack of tangible, practiced, and enforced comprehensive institutional-level efforts to address type II violence from an occupational safety perspective. Such inattention, coupled with an intense focus on customer service in hospitals, perpetuates an acceptance of violence against healthcare workers, rather than appropriately ensuring it is not “part of the job.”

Learning Areas:

Occupational health and safety

Learning Objectives:
Describe the effects of hospital workers’ perception of patient and visitor perpetrated violence as “part of the job” on workers, the research approach, and researchers.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Trained as a epidemiologist with quantitative and qualitative research experience, I have served as a co-investigator on several federally funded grants focused on the occupational safety and health of health care workers, including a current project focused on type II violence.
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.

Back to: 5131.0: Violence in the workplace