User:Kenziemaher/sandbox

= Workplace Violence: =

Occupational groups at a higher risk
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. ]

= Nursing: =

Occupational Hazards:
Nurses are also at risk for violence and abuse in the workplace. Violence is typically perpetrated by non-staff (e.g. patients or family), whereas abuse is typically perpetrated by other hospital personnel. Of American nurses, 57% reported in 2011 that they had been threatened at work; 17% were physically assaulted.

[ There are 3 different types of workplace violence that nurses can experience. First, physical violence, which can be hitting, kicking, beating, punching, biting, and using objects to inflict force upon someone. Second, psychological violence is when something is done to impair another person through threats and/or coercion. Third, sexual violence which can include any completed or attempted non-consensual sexual act.

Workplace violence an also be categorized into two different levels, interpersonal violence and organizational coercion. Interpersonal violence could be committed by co-workers and/or patients by others in the hospital. The main form of this level is verbal abuse. Organizational coercion may include an irrationally high workload, forced shifts, forced placement in different wards of the hospital, low salaries, denial of benefits for overwork, poor working environment, and other workplace stressors. These problems can affect the quality of life for these nurses who may experience them. It can be extremely detrimental to nurses if their managers lack understanding of the severity of these problems and do not support the nurses through them.

There are many contributing factors to workplace violence. These factors can be divided into environmental, organizational, and individual psychosocial. The environmental factors can include the specific setting (for example the emergency department), long patient wait times, frequent interruptions, uncertainty regarding the patients' treatment, and heavy workloads. Organizational factors can include inefficient teamwork, organizational injustice, lack of aggression and/or stress management programs, and distrust between colleagues. Individual psychosocial factors may include nurses being young and inexperienced, previous experiences with violence, and a lack of communication skills. Misunderstandings may also occur due to the communication barrier between nurses and patients. An example of this could be the patient's condition being affected by medication, pain, and/or anxiety.

There are many causes of workplace violence. The most common perpetrators for harassment and/or bullying against nursing students were registered nurses including preceptors, mentors, and clinical facilitators. However, the main cause of workplace violence against nurses were patients. 80% of serious violence incidents in health care centers were due to the nurses' interactions with patients.

There are many different effects of workplace violence in the field of Nursing. Workplace violence can have a negative impact on nurses both emotionally and physically. They feel depersonalized, dehumanized, fatigued, worn out, stressed out, and tired. Because of the severity of some incidents of violence, nurses have reported manifestations of burn-out due to the frequent exposure. This can heavily impact of a nurses' mental health and cause nurses to feel unsatisfied with their profession and unsafe in their work environment. ]