The Experience of Patient-Related Violence Against Emergency Department Nurses in the United States: A Phenomenological Pilot Study
Purpose
This study described the experiences, thoughts, perceptions, and feelings of emergency department nurses regarding patient-related violence.
Design and Methods
A descriptive phenomenological research approach was adopted to collect data through unstructured interviews. Three participants were recruited via word of mouth through colleagues from two different states (North East) in the United States. Data were collected from October to November 2018. Colaizzi’s phenomenological methodology was adopted to analyze the interview content.
Findings
Seven themes emerged from the analysis of the data: physical violence, take care of patients regardless of their behavior, communication skills, lack of training and educational intervention, contributing factor: long waiting times, expletive forms of verbal abuse and threatening behaviors, and the impact of violent behavior on nurses led to feelings of negative emotions.
Conclusions
Provide training to ED nurses on how to handle violence situations and the employers has to implement policies to make the workplace safe for both nurses and patients. The findings of this study highlight the urgency of taking a realistic approach to preventing workplace violence to organizational leaders.
This is a list of supplementary files associated with this preprint. Click to download.
Posted 15 Jan, 2020
The Experience of Patient-Related Violence Against Emergency Department Nurses in the United States: A Phenomenological Pilot Study
Posted 15 Jan, 2020
Purpose
This study described the experiences, thoughts, perceptions, and feelings of emergency department nurses regarding patient-related violence.
Design and Methods
A descriptive phenomenological research approach was adopted to collect data through unstructured interviews. Three participants were recruited via word of mouth through colleagues from two different states (North East) in the United States. Data were collected from October to November 2018. Colaizzi’s phenomenological methodology was adopted to analyze the interview content.
Findings
Seven themes emerged from the analysis of the data: physical violence, take care of patients regardless of their behavior, communication skills, lack of training and educational intervention, contributing factor: long waiting times, expletive forms of verbal abuse and threatening behaviors, and the impact of violent behavior on nurses led to feelings of negative emotions.
Conclusions
Provide training to ED nurses on how to handle violence situations and the employers has to implement policies to make the workplace safe for both nurses and patients. The findings of this study highlight the urgency of taking a realistic approach to preventing workplace violence to organizational leaders.