Violence against Emergency Room Nurses

Violence against Emergency Room Nurses
Student:
Professor:
Course title:
Date:
Violence against Emergency Room Nurses
Abstract
For this research, the identified problem is violence against nurses in the hospital setting. Violence against healthcare workers, nurses in particular, is a major issue. There have been several cases of patients, the close relatives of patients, and even senior staffs at health care organizations being aggressive and violent toward nursing staffs. The most widespread forms of violence against nursing staffs include verbal abuse as well as physical abuse especially from patients. Nursing staffs remain reserved and many of them find it difficult to complain about the incidents; hence, they remain victimized. This in turn makes them accept violence as part of the job. The healthcare community is aware of this violence and their numerous approaches to stopping it have failed given that violence recurs and is most prevalent in emergency departments (EDs). Researchers have reported that patients tend to become violent and aggressive toward nursing staffs due to factors such as age, gender, mental status, alcohol, as well as drug use. The proposed solution entails a number of measures such as registering nurses in crisis management training programs to enable them gain awareness and knowledge in providing care for patients even when they exhibit violence and aggression toward them. Other measures entail establishing warning systems that will alert the nurses about aggressive and violent patients, and ensuring that all incidences of violence against nurses are reported.
The methods that would be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed change include comparing the number of reported incidences of violence against nurses prior to the implementation of the proposed solution and following its implementation. The proposed change would be regarded as effective if the cases of reported violence against nurses per month drop and become lower compared to the numbers of reported cases prior to the implementation of the change. The effectiveness of the proposed change would also be evaluated by comparing how nurses respond to situations in which patients demonstrate violence and aggression toward them before and after implementation of the proposed change. When evaluating the project outcomes, the variable that would be assessed is attitudes and perceptions of healthcare workers. Fliers, booklets, brochures, and pamphlet would be used to educate the project participants. To evaluate outcomes of the project, questionnaire and interviews...