Title : Rural hospital general ward nurses experiences of workplace violence and aggression by patients and visitors – A scoping review
Abstract:
Violence and aggression in the workplace is a growing concern across most industry sectors globally. The healthcare industry consistently ranks as one of the highest in number of incidents, and of all healthcare workers, nurses are over-represented. Considerable research has been undertaken in clinical areas known to be high risk for workplace violence (WPV), such as Emergency Departments and Psychiatric wards. However, WPV incidents are increasingly occurring in general medical and surgical wards, which is where most nurses are employed. Several key issues differentiate WPV in rural hospitals from those in urban areas, including lack of resources to assist in incident prevention and management and the increased likelihood that nurse victims and offenders have personal or family connections. WPV contributes to nursing workforce shortages with rural hospitals experiencing greater nursing workforce challenges than their urban counterparts. The purpose of this study was to explore what is known about rural hospital general ward nurses’ experiences of workplace violence and aggression by patients and visitors. We conducted a literature review using PRISMA-ScR guidelines and sourced publications from CINAHL, Cochrane Library and Medline databases along with the Google Scholar and Scopus search engines. Initial screening of 165 journal articles resulted in 12 articles selected for data extraction. Data synthesis of selected studies highlighted four major themes: high prevalence, under-reporting of incidents, contributing factors and negative psychosocial and other impacts. Based on the literature review, we concluded that patient/visitor-initiated violence towards nurses is largely under-reported which has serious implications for nurses physical and psychosocial safety, adverse patient outcomes and recruitment and retention of nurses in general medical and surgical hospital wards. Workplace violence has serious implications for nurses’ physical and psychosocial safety, adverse patient outcomes and recruitment and retention of nurses in rural hospitals. Further research is therefore warranted to understand the experiences of rural generalist nurses to implement strategies for risk- mitigation and post incident support.
