Hospital Incidents.
Violence Prevention Research articles pertaining to the reporting of workplace violence: Arnetz, J. E., Hamblin, L., Ager, J., Luborsky, M., Upfal, M. J., Russell, J., & Essenmacher, L. (2015). Underreporting of Workplace Violence: Comparison of Self-Report and Actual Documentation of Hospital Incidents. Workplace health & safety, 63(5), 200–210. doi:10.1177/2165079915574684 This study examined differences between self-report and actual documentation of workplace violence (WPV) incidents in a cohort of health care workers. The study was conducted in an American hospital system with a central electronic database for reporting WPV events. In 2013, employees (n = 2010) were surveyed by mail about their experience of WPV in the previous year. Survey responses were compared with actual events entered into the electronic system. Of questionnaire respondents who self-reported a violent event in the past year, 88% had not documented an incident in the electronic system. However, more than 45% had reported violence informally, for example, to their supervisors. The researchers found that if employees were injured or lost time from work, they were more likely to formally report a violent event. Understanding the magnitude of underreporting and characteristics of health care workers who are less likely to report may assist hospitals in determining where to focus violence education and prevention efforts. Strength- Approval for study was granted by the Internal Review Board at the University, and the Research Review Council of the hospital system. Article was peer reviewed. Analysis was completed by Chi-Square. The study was aimed at comparing self-report of WPV with actual documentation of violent incidents, it also intended to highlight which care areas had the highest incident of WPV,due to poor responsiveness of participants it highlights underreporting as a critical barrier to developing WPV prevention strategies. Weakness- questionaires are limited by design, and it is hard to quantify underreporting of workplace violence among healthcare workers. Data collection was completed by a questionaire mailed to the homes of employees. Only 22% of employees responded to the questionaire. The questionaire asked respondents to retrospectively recall incidents from the past year, creating recall bias. Another limiting factor to the study, while hospital policy mandates violent episode reporting there may be underreporting as the study did not examine what types of violent expericences therefor some individuals may not deem certain behaviors as violent, such non-physical incidents, Campbell, C. L., Burg, M. A., & Gammonley, D. (2015). Measures for incident reporting of patient violence and aggression towards healthcare providers: A systematic review. Aggression & Violent Behavior, 25, 314–322. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.avb.2015.09.014 Patient violence and aggression towards healthcare providers is a significant health and public affairs problem receiving international attention. Such violence is found to occur regardless of healthcare setting or provider discipline. However, most of the evidence of a high frequency of incidents perpetrated against providers is anecdotal and solid data on the prevalence of these incidents is not yet available. Studies have shown that accurate incident reporting remains one of the primary impediments to creating organizational policies and procedures to ensure the safety of the clinical direct care healthcare provider. Yet there is no clear evidence base currently existing to suggest what measures are of most utility in remedying this underreporting. This article contributes to the literature by conducting a systematic review of existing instruments designed to measure and report incidents of patient violence against health care workers. It is hoped that this review of existing measures will stimulate health care agencies to employ routine provider reporting mechanisms in order to increase provider reporting, improve the data on patient violence and consequentially work towards combatting this public affairs problem. Strength: This article is a systematic review of literature over the last 20 years. Both conceptual and systematic research articles were utilized for this review. Articles were excluded that were not published in peer review journals. The study included all articles written in English as part of its inclusion criteria. This meta-analysis found that violence in nursing is an international problem. The research did include three large scale studies, two national level studies from Australia and one international study. The conclusion highlights a lack of standardized measures for reporting and no standardized systematic approaches to handle WPV. But findings did suggest that violence is prevalent and underreported. Weakness: the study was limited to only English written articles. It is important to note that the research excluded articles of violence perpetuated by patient visitor. Copeland, D., & Henry, M. (n.d.). Workplace Violence and Perceptions of Safety Among Emergency Department Staff Members: Experiences, Expectations, Tolerance, Reporting, and Recommendations. JOURNAL OF TRAUMA NURSING, 24(2), 65–77. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1097/JTN.0000000000000269 Workplace violence (WPV) is a widely recognized problem in emergency departments (EDs). The majority of WPV studies do not include nonclinical staff and do not address expectations of violence, tolerance to violence, or perceptions of safety. Among a multidisciplinary sample of ED staff members, specific study aims were to (a) describe exposure to WPV; (b) describe perceptions of safety, tolerance to violence, and expectation of violence; (c) describe reporting behaviors and perceived barriers to reporting violence; (d) examine relationships between demographic variables, experiences of violence, tolerance to violence, perceptions of safety, and reporting behaviors; and (e) identify perceptions of viable interventions to improve workplace safety. A cross-sectional design was used to survey ED staff members in a Level 1 Shock Trauma center. Eleven disciplines were represented in 147 completed surveys; 88% of respondents reported exposure to WPV in the previous 6 months. Members of every discipline reported exposure to WPV; 98% of the sample felt safe at work and 64% felt violence was an expected part of the job. Most violence was not reported, primarily because “nobody was hurt.” Emergency department staff members expected and experienced violence; nevertheless, there was a widespread perception of safety. Perceptions of safety and reasons for not reporting did not mirror previous findings. The WPV exposure is not isolated to clinical staff members and occurs even when prevention strategies are in place. The definition of WPV and the individual’s interpretation of the event might preclude reporting. Strength- this is a cross sectional study making the quality of evidence highly reliable. The study was multifactorial allowing for a broad examination of the perceptions of safety, toleration of violence, reporting behaviors and barriers, as well as demographic variables. It also identified potential interventions to improve workplace safety. One interesting note about the study is that while exposure to WPV was slightly higher than previous studies, respondents also noted a perception of safety greater than the exposure.
