Violence In Nursing

Introduction

Globally, it has been documented that all nurses and other direct care health professionals are at substantial risk for violence exposure initiated by patient, families, visitors, health care provider and workplace colleagues (Edward, 2014) . It is estimated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) 2015 that cases of workplace violence in health sector were four times more than other industries between 2002 and 2013. Violence and aggression incorporate several types of behaviors such as physical (hitting and pushing), verbal abuse (swearing and insulting language), threatening behaviors ( destroying property and throwing objectives) sexual and racial harassment and psychological stress (The Canadian Center of

Worldwide, several studies have been examining the prevalence and frequency of violence and aggression episodes toward psychiatric nurses but there is no specific proportion because of difference in violence perception, difference violence reporting rate between the wards and different data collection in each studies(Edward, 2014). For example, according to the literature review conducted by Bower et al (2011)to examine the prevalence of workplace violence in inpatients psychiatry in 10 countries found that the United Kingdom (UK) and Sweden have high level of violence incidence caused by patients toward nurses(41.73%, 42.90% respectively). In 2013 in UK , 43,699 physical assaults were annually reported against mental health nurses in psychiatry setting (Protect, 2013) .In our clinical practice, in 2016 the total number of reported incidents were 585 in which 15% assaults caused by patients toward staff.(MOH, 2016). From this perspective, the main professional group that manage violent incidents in clinical practice ( and who are most likely to be victims) are mental health nurses and their role is crucial to violent response. Therefore, nurses who are working in inpatient psychiatric setting are expected to be highly knowledgeable and skilled in order to

Consequently, violence perpetrated by psychiatric inpatient toward mental health nurses has received little interest outside the field. However, there has been a national concern in psychiatric hospital in Oman in managing patient aggression and violence by continuous staff training and attending courses and workshops. In addition, staff has a chances to complete a study in psychiatry and take the specialty to be more competent. Disturbingly, nurses tendend not to report incidents due to fear from the maagers, lack of training and education, lack of clear incident reporting policy, nurse perception that violence are part of acute mental health care and previously experienced no action post incident(Kitaneh and Hamdan, 2012, Minstery of health 2017). Post incdents review and debriefing of the staff team and clients has a positive impact on staff and client to learn from the incident and plan , so as to avoid repeating violence again. It is practiced in our hospital however, it is limited and not practicing effectively. Nurses would however utilize support from collegues and the incharge (informal supports) rather than from organization in structured way. Significantly, nurses need to feel safe and supported when they been assaulted and victimized. This cam be achieved through formal support program like debriefing system following the incident.Additionaly, it is necessary that