Our focus is to identify a problem specific to your role option that is amenable to an innovative solution.
Based on your specialty role option (i.e., Nurse Practitioner, Nurse Educator, Nurse Informaticist, Nurse Administrator), identify a potential problem (topic) that you would like to investigate through nursing research. Begin by reading the American Association of Colleges of Nursing’s (AACN) position statement on nursing research (Nursing Research).
Next explore South’s Online Library and conduct a search to locate a minimum of three nursing research articles that have addressed the problem you have identified. The literature may not be older than 5 years. After reading the literature respond to the following:
- Note your role specialization and briefly describe the problem you are interested in researching and why this is of interest to you.
- Discuss your library search strategies and briefly summarize the literature you reviewed. Focus your discussion on the “problem” and how the literature you identified provides evidence of the existence of the problem.
- Include in your discussion a potential innovation that you might consider as a solution to the problem identified.
- Include citations/references in APA style format, using citations where appropriate.
I WOULD LIKE TO RESEARCH WORK PLACE VIOLENCE LIKE THE SAMPLE BELOW
I am currently enrolled in classes for my master’s degree in Family Nurse Practitioner with South University. Thus far in the workplace an issue I have witnessed numerous times and been subjected to is workplace violence experienced by health care providers. Being a nurse at a psychiatric crisis stabilization unit for adolescents I have come first hand with verbal and physical abuse from patients and patient’s family members. In the atmosphere I work in you are already working in high stress environment, and when you add the addition of work place violence rather it be physical or verbal you increase the stress levels for everyone. As a nurse it is imperative that I can provide the up most quality of care for my patients, however; workplace violence can hinder the quality of care due patients receive.
I started my library search with conducting a search over workplace violence, types of work place violence, steps to take to make a healthy work environment, and training programs of how to handle work place violence. I found many articles over this topic, the first article that I found interesting was over how workplace violence is a major public health concern that has received growing attention. Recent media regarding workplace violence in the healthcare industry, has raised the level of consciousness regarding the adverse effects of violence. It is abundantly clear that violence at work from patients, colleagues, and workplace intruders, is a significant occupational health hazard for nurses in all settings. All nurses, regardless of experience or position, are at risk of workplace violence. A position statement released by the American Nurses Association (ANA) indicates incivility, bullying, and violence in the workplace are serious issues in nursing.2 ANA defines incivility as one or more rude, discourteous, or disrespectful actions that may or may not have a negative intent behind them. Bullying is defined as repeated, unwanted, harmful actions intended to humiliate, offend, and cause distress in the recipient. Some examples of workplace violence include direct physical assaults (with or without a weapon), written or verbal threats, physical or verbal harassment, and homicide. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) classifies workplace violence into four basic types:
• Type I: Involves criminal intent. In this type of workplace violence, individuals with criminal intent have no relationship to the business or its employees.
• Type II: Involves a customer, client, or patient. In this type, an individual has a relationship with the business and becomes violent while receiving services.
• Type III: Violence involves a worker-on-worker relationship and includes employees who attack or threaten another employee.
• Type IV: Violence involves personal relationships. It includes individuals who have interpersonal relationships with the intended target but no relationship to the business (Colorado Nurse, 2019).
Within the first article I also found how to help establish a safe working environment. The article stresses how within the workplace, bullying and violence must become everyone’s issue. Nurses, nurse managers and organization leaders must adopt and model professional and ethical behaviors to improve the work environment. The creation of a safe work environment and a culture of respect are vital components necessary to address workplace violence. A safe work environment promotes trust, as well as physical and psychological wellbeing. A key component to preventing and managing workplace bullying is education. Educating all levels of employees about what workplace bullying is, how to identify bullying behaviors, and how to respond, report and manage bullying. Some additional steps that can be taken to provide a healthy and safe workplace are:
• Modeling empathy and compassion
• Educating all levels of staff
• Fostering positive and healthy relationships amongst the healthcare team
• Encouraging reporting
• Providing a safe reporting environment for the person being bullied and bystanders
• Offering support, education and counseling to any nurse exhibiting emotional distress (Colorado Nurse, 2019).
The second article that I found addressed the impact of training programs on nurses’ attitudes towards workplace violence. The study showed how the effects of workplace violence on nurses are numerous and costly. In the USA, billions of dollars spent each year on security costs, medical and legal expenses, lost time from work and other financial losses as a direct consequence of workplace violence. The emotional and psychological costs are a lot more difficult to quantify and are substantial compared to financial costs. Burnout, depression, fears, post-traumatic stress disroder (PTSD), lack of job satisfaction and reduced ability to perform job role are consequences of the workplace violence. Moreover, most of nurses leave the health care profession as an issue of workplace violence. The study highlights a general concern among nursing staff about workplace violence. Confirming that violence prevention education for staff is a necessary step forward to deescalate the problem. A significant effect of the training program was evident in this study. The results of this study revealed that 63.9% of nurses had been exposed to verbal abuse, by patients and the visitors between one to ten times during their life history. A total of 97 nurses completed the survey. The outcomes demonstrated the significant impact of the training program on nurses’ attitudes towards workplace violence (Al-Ali, Al Faouri, Al-Miarat, 2016).
The third article I found was a quasi-experimental study of nurses using pretest-posttest measurements of educational objectives and confidence levels, with two week follow-up. The study showed how workplace violence in mental health settings has received the most attention with widely documented high prevalence; however, there has been increasing evidence for some time to suggest that work place violence in Australian, United Kingdom, and United States non-mental settings is of a similar concern. Workplace violence prevention and management have become an increasing priority for healthcare facilities, with employers consequently having an obligation to address this problem under their duty of care to employees. In 2013, several US states enacted legislation to this effect, requiring heath authorities to have mandatory work place violence prevention programs. The goal is to examine the effects of a workplace violence training programs in relation to risk assessment and management practices, de-escalation skills, breakaway techniques, and confidence levels, within an acute hospital setting. Positive results were observed from the workplace violence training. Training needs to be complimented by a multi-faceted organizational approach which includes governance, quality and review processes (Lamont, Brunero, 2018).
Workplace violence is a very serious and prevalent issue in healthcare that I feel does not get enough attention. A serious problem yes, however, a potential innovation dos exist which is obvious with the facts presented in the literature reviews. Acknowledgement from all aspects is key for change. Proper education in aggression management may help reduce incidence of violence in health care settings and potentially decrease the affects that violence has on the quality of care administered.
References
Al-Ali, N. M., Al Faouri, I., & Al-Niarat, T. F. (2016). Original Article: The impact of training program on nurses’ attitudes toward workplace violence in Jordan. Applied Nursing Research, 30, 83–89.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apnr.2015.11.001
Lamont, S., & Brunero, S. (2018). The effect of a workplace violence training program for generalist nurses in the acute hospital setting: A quasi-experimental study. Nurse Education Today, 68, 45–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2018.05.008
Workplace Violence: The impact on Nursing. (2019). Colorado Nurse, 119(1), 5. Retrieved fromhttps://www.thecampuscommon.com/library/ezproxy/ticketdemocs.asp?sch=suo&turl=https://search-ebscohost-com.southuniversity.libproxy.edmc.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rzh&AN=134782735&site=eds-live