Workplace violence in healthcare is a recognized hazard in the industry. WPV in the US has been on the rise in recent decades. It is estimated that between 70% to 75% of the violence is recorded from the healthcare facilities (Mento et al. 2020). WPV could come in the form of intimidation, physical violence, or other disruptive conduct that could happen at the workplace. Sources of violence could be colleagues, clients, visitors, or customers. Recorded forms of violence include threats, physical attacks, verbal insults, and even homicide. In my workplace, the hospital has put effort into curbing workplace violence that includes providing health workers training to enable them to better manage the WPV. It has also enacted stringent rules against the perpetrators and adopted post-incident strategies.
Healthcare facilities should equip their workers to handle and manage WPV through training and education. This should be provided to all staff as a way of protective strategies offered by the organization. Through these programs, the staff should be enlightened on the early indicators of occupational stress and ways to identify early signs of when a patient or a visitor could be violent and help them identify potentially violent situations (Mento et al. 2020). Healthcare workers should also be trained on escalation procedures and physical violence prevention skills; this should be done in conjunction with the comprehensive, multifaceted response to reduce critical situations in case of workplace violence.
Healthcare facilities should adopt post-incident techniques in the workplace as part of violence handling strategies. This involves reporting the perpetrators and offering psychological help for the affected employees to reduce the possibilities of post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) (Mento et al. 2020). The administration could also flag records and files for the patients who have a previous history of violence with the health workers. Huge penalties should be imposed on patients found to engage in violence with the medical workers to discourage the vice.
References
Mento, C., Silvestri, M. C., Bruno, A., Muscatello, M. R. A., Cedro, C., Pandolfo, G., & Zoccali, R. A. (2020). Workplace violence against healthcare professionals: A systematic review. Aggression and violent behavior, 51, 101381. Web.
