Review

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Workplace Violence in Nursing

Nissane Diao

College of nursing, Resurrection University

NUR4242 Ethics in Nursing

Dr. Rose Loiacono

06/0/2021

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Workplace violence in nursing consists of the physical and psychological harassment and

damages that happen to nurses while they are on duty. One factor that leads to a reduced job in

most nurses is that it turns the nurses off and discourages them from their profession. It reduces

the job satisfaction and the quality of the working life of the nurses. Nurses are well known for

their providence of the most outstanding amount of services to the patients and their essential

role in the quality of services. Most nurses face workplace violence, and in most of these cases,

they go unrecognized (Boafo, 2018).

Workplace violence is evolving and is noted to grow to a global problem in many

countries. There is a rising rate of violence and abuse in health care centers, which became a

significant problem for nurses (Boafo, 2018). It is now a national epidemic for most of the nurses

found in health facilities. The voluntary acts of physical and verbal violence are now a threat to

the well-being of the workers and the organizations they work in. This is a significant threat to

both nurses and to the organization that employ them. It affects the dignity of most of the nurses

worldwide, and they cause most of the emotional injuries to the nurses (Boafo, 2018).

This paper will discuss the different types of workplace violence that the nurses face and

affect the nurses physically and emotionally. The different types include the patient being more

violent, employee to employee violence and the personal relationship violence. The significant

causes of workplace violence, how they happen and how to avoid them, or how to handle such a

case on workplace violence. Nurses play a vital role in the health system, and as they take care of

the patients. It is also essential that they are protected from these forms of workplace violence.

This helps them create a conducive environment for them to work efficiently and deliver the best

services (Boafo, 2018).

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Nursing generally is termed as an ethical job that is needed throughout the world. Its

existence is in the modern age to care for and help many people and maximize how we treat

patients or people in general. Nursing is very ethical since each patient is taken care of

differently, and each patient has a different choice according to their ethics, rules, feelings, and

their culture (T. Cheung & P.S.F. Yip, 2017). Nursing is taken as a controversy both for the

patient and the nurses in practice. In today's evolving society, nursing is taken as a profession

and needed in the community. It has to fit in the organization and the technology by far. In

today's society, nursing is required more than ever. Its responsibility to care in general is missing

from parts of the world (T. Cheung & P.S.F. Yip, 2017).

Workplace violence is a recurring problem for most nurses. Mostly the nurses face this

violence and the emergency workers. There has been an academic debate, and the discussion is

growing over time, and this debate gives us the power to gain an insight into this problem. This

problem has a prominent social in many countries worldwide (T. Cheung & P.S.F. Yip, 2017).

Many consequences of this workplace violence have direct and indirect harmful effects on both

the nurses and their patients. They lead to compromised patient care. These incidents of violence

and inadequate managerial care after the violent incidents may reduce the nurses' proficiency

which has negative implications for the patient's care (T. Cheung & P.S.F. Yip, 2017).

Workplace violence leads to job dissatisfaction and turnover intention among care

professionals. This includes bullying and physical violence that leads to an increase in turnover

intention. Nursing generally involves all aspects that deal with the community that involves the

hiring organization and the ways to examine the moral behaviors and some personal decisions

(T. Cheung & P.S.F. Yip, 2017). The major ethical principles are autonomy, beneficence,

nonmaleficence, justice, and providing the professional codes of conduct. These four ethical

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principles help in the utilization and the description of the ethical conduct of care for nurses and

people that practice and the professional works (T. Cheung & P.S.F. Yip, 2017).

Workplace violence is ranked as one of the most leading causes of occupational injury in

the united states at large. It majorly knows for the cause of the diverse effects on the employees'

mental and physical health and their social interactions at work and their ability to perform on

the job they are supposed to do. It sometimes results in other less obvious effects like caregiver

fatigue, injury, or stress which eventually leads to increased medication errors or patient

infection risks (T. Cheung & P.S.F. Yip, 2017). These effects may jeopardize employee

retention and the teamwork of the nursing unit that is required to deliver quality care for the

patients (T. Cheung & P.S.F. Yip, 2017).

Nurses tend to face complex and more persistent violent situations in their place of work

in the form of intimidation, harassment, and staking as well as beatings, stabbings and some

shootings among many more states of assaults (T. Norris, 2018). These assaults typically affect

their job satisfaction and their ability to deliver the best services that they can. The nurses who

experience workplace violence suffer from post-traumatic stress symptoms that include

distressing emotions, difficulty forming thoughts, and the ability to think clearly. Some even do a

resignation in taking care of their patients, abstention, and have job charges. This violence

sometimes leads to the nurse's intent to leave the profession, employee disengagement, and poor

job satisfaction (T. Norris, 2018).

Workplace violence includes physical, emotional, and psychological torture of the nurses

by the nurses. Physical violence causes some physical injuries and sometimes might lead to the

death of the nurses. Emotional suffering can lead to depression or stress for the nurses facing the

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violence (T. Norris, 2018). There are many causes of workplace violence in nursing and the

implications of these assaults. One of them includes the home-based settings associated with the

risks since the working environment is not easily controlled in environments where their setup

comprises robbery, car theft, weapons, and an environment full of drug abuse and family

violence. These environments contribute to the workplace violence experienced by most nurses

(T. Norris, 2018).

Some hospital environments present with a greater risk of the customer or more patients

that have inflicted workplace violence than other settings. The emergency departments and the

psychiatric facilities are the most highly ranked places that nurses experience workplace

violence. Generally, all the employees that work in the inpatient department settings in the

psychiatric are the most vulnerable to target violence than those in the other areas of the hospital

(T. Norris, 2018). Nurses exposed to these environments are more susceptible to the verbal and

physical assaults they face frequently. There is also an association between aggressive behavior

and anti-social personality disorder that includes manipulative and exploitive behavior. These

behaviors give the nurses frustrations, mistrust, and fear (T. Norris, 2018).

Workplace violence is not part of the job that a nurse is employed to do. We should

understand that there are inherent risks that the nurses face with the patients that they care for.

They experience behavioral health emergencies, dementia, and other organic complexities, or

even the visitors who are under duress and we cannot become complacent (T. Norris, 2018).

There should be an advocacy for workplace violence in nursing. Advocacy should be the state of

legislation, creating and enforcing facility policies, and also the providence of education on the

workplace violence with the practice should be an essential strategy. There should be some

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considerations that should be put in place, like the metal detectors and dedicated security

personnel (T. Norris, 2018).

Ethical awareness majors its association in recognizing the ethical implications of all the

nursing actions, which is the initial step in the moral act. Health care as a system is complex

because of its contemporary environment. The nurses need to recognize and address ethical

issues as they arise in the hospital setup (L.Hartigan & L. Cussen et al., 2018). This implies that

the nurses must first recognize the potential ethical repercussions of their actions to effectively

resolve the problems and address their patients' needs. The nursing goals encompass the

protection, promotion, and restoration of the health and well-being of every patient they get to

interact with. They prevent illnesses and injury and alleviate suffering in the care of the

individuals, families, groups, and the communities that their patients are found in (L.Hartigan &

L. Cussen et al., 2018).

Awareness of these ethical issues helps nurses take any action and practice in the most

ethically acceptable way. If the nurse's step conflicts with their goal or one of the principles, or if

the nurse tends to act in a manner that ignores the patient's preferences, then the nurse is said to

take a risk unethically (N. Demirsoy & N. Kirimlioglu, 2016). The awareness entails recognizing

the chance that nursing actions could fail to adhere to the goals of nursing, and by this, they

violate the ethical principles. This awareness of the ethical issues helps the nurse take action and

practice in the most ethically acceptable way. Even the clinical situations they face while in

practice need the most careful consideration of the ethical risks (N. Demirsoy & N. Kirimlioglu,

2016).

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Interprofessional teams, associations, industries, and others should address the ethical issues on

behalf of the nation's health and safety, which is essential to the health well being and the health

care workforce (N. Demirsoy & N. Kirimlioglu, 2016).

The nurses should be given a platform or even the mechanism to report the ethical issues

these issues like under staffing or when they face times of constraints. The nurse managers and

the executives have a particular obligation to ensure that the direct care nurses are empowered to

identify and engage in these ethical situations (N. Demirsoy & N. Kirimlioglu, 2016). All nurses

are always responsible for the contribution to a moral environment in the health care system.

There is also the need for continuing education for the novice and the expert nurses. They should

be given an education about the principles of documentation and competence in specificity. The

guidelines and the best practices of confidentiality and privacy should also be given to the nurses

to know how to handle the different issues on privacy and privacy matters(N. Demirsoy & N.

Kirimlioglu, 2016).

Nurses are mainly exposed to various forms of workplace violence; verbal abuse,

physical violence, sexual harassment, and verbal threats. The prominent people who cause these

forms of violence are the patients and the relatives of the patients. There is always a need to

sensitize the nurses on workplace violence and provide them with job training on workplace

violence. They should establish a straightforward reporting procedure and the consequences for

the people causing the violence to mitigate this violence (N. Demirsoy & N. Kirimlioglu, 2016).

It is necessary to establish a safe workplace for the nurses and a clear and comprehensive

mechanism to support these nurses who have had experiences in workplace violence.

Implementing the existing laws and the workplace policies should make a strong development of

the safe working environments for the nurses (N. Demirsoy & N. Kirimlioglu, 2016).

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References

Boafo, I.M. (2018). The effects of workplace respect and violence on nurses’ job satisfaction in

Ghana: a cross-sectional survey. Human resources health, 16(6). https://doi.org/10.1186/

s12960-018-0269-9

Norris, T. (2018). Workplace violence among nurses and nursing assistants in Texas.

https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/5510/

Cheung, T., Lee, P. H., & Yip, P. S. (2017). Workplace violence toward physicians and nurses:

prevalence and correlates in Macau. International journal of environmental research and public

health, 14(8), 879. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/8/879

Hartigan, L., Cussen, L., Meaney, S., & O’Donoghue, K. (2018). Patients’ perception of privacy

and confidentiality in the emergency department of a busy obstetric unit. BMC health services

research, 18(1), 1-6. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12913-018-3782-6

fer Demirsoy, N., & Kirimlioglu, N. (2016). Protection of privacy and confidentiality as a patient

right: physicians' and nurses' viewpoints. https://www.biomedres.info/biomedical-