Violence in Healthcare
Introduction
Healthcare and social service workers face a significant risk of job-related violence. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) defines workplace violence as "violent acts (including physical assaults and threats of assaults) directed toward persons at work or on duty."
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in 2018, healthcare workers accounted for 73 percent of all nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses due to violence. That same year, healthcare and social services workers suffered 20 out of the 453 workplace fatalities due to violence. The most common assailant in workplace homicides to healthcare workers was a relative or domestic partner of the injured worker.
Case Reports
- An elderly patient verbally abused a nurse and pulled her hair when she prevented him from leaving the hospital to go home in the middle of the night.
- An agitated psychotic patient attacked a nurse, broke her arm, and scratched and bruised her.
- A disturbed family member whose father had died in surgery at the community hospital walked into the emergency department and fired a small-caliber handgun, killing a nurse and an emergency medical technician and wounding the emergency physician.
These circumstances of hospital violence differ from the circumstances of workplace violence in general. In other workplaces such as convenience stores and taxicabs, violence most often relates to robbery. Violence in hospitals usually results from patients and occasionally from their family members who feel frustrated, vulnerable, and out of control.
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
1-1. Healthcare and social service workers face a significant risk of job-related violence. How does NIOSH define workplace violence?
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