User:Kenziemaher/Workplace violence

Article body
The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety lists the following higher risk occupations.


 * Healthcare workers
 * Correctional officers
 * Social Services workers
 * Teachers
 * Municipal housing inspectors
 * Public Works Employees
 * Retail Workers
 * Police Officers

Health care workers are at high risk for experiencing violence in the workplace. Examples of violence include threats, physical assaults, and muggings. According to estimates of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the rate of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses involving days away from work was 15.1 per 10,000 full-time workers in 2012. This rate is much higher than the rate for total private industries, which is 4.0 per 10,000 full-time workers.

There are many contributing factors that can lead to health-care workers, specifically nurses, experiencing workplace violence. These factors can be divided into environmental, organizational, and individual psychosocial. A few environmental factors may include the specific setting, long waiting times, frequent interruptions, uncertainty regarding the patients' treatment, and heavy workloads. Organizational factors may include inefficient teamwork, organizational injustice, lack of aggression management programs, and distrust between colleagues. This may also include inadequate security procedures. Individual psychosocial factors may include nurses being young and inexperienced, previous experiences with violence, and a lack of communication skills and/or awareness of how to interpret aggressive situations. Misunderstandings may also occur due to the communication barrier between nurses and patients. A few examples of this are a lack of privacy for the patient, background noise, and the patient's condition being affected by medication, pain, and/or anxiety.