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Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to recognize the incidence and impact of the negative outcomes associated with workplace violence.
Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to understand the actual and feared violent events at work in a clinical setting.
The purpose of phase one of this study was to assess current workplace violence in a southeast medical center with an anticipated need for an educational/behavioral intervention to impact WPV. Workplace violence began to be tracked as a targeted interest of employee health in January 2011 resulting in a perceived under-reporting of violent events.
In an academic-clinical partnership with a university school of nursing, a phase one research project was designed to establish baseline knowledge of actual and feared violent events at work. The investigators surveyed 53 medical center employees with the Violent Events at Work and Fear of Future Violent Events a Work surveys, tools with established test-retest reliability (r(34)) =.92, p < .01).
Items on both tools were significantly different by unit worked, including actual and feared physical violent events of hitting and kicking (p < .05) and spitting and biting (p < .05). Fear of future violent events was significantly different by unit worked (X 2 (35) = 56.634, p < .05). Of the seven employees who reported fear of future violent events at work, five (71.4%) were from the ER or Behavioral unit.
The basis of this research project lay the groundwork for future interventional research aimed at decreasing workplace violence within the healthcare setting.