Donatas Gužauskas, Viktorija Grigaliūnienė

Abstract

Nursing staff is the main victim of violence and physical aggressionat the workplace. In comparison with other professionsthe risk is particularly high. Nurses stand 3 times higher risk ofbecoming victims of violence than other health care specialists.Aim – to reveal the prevalence of aggression suffered by mentalcare nurses in psychiatric care hospitals.Methods. An original questionnaire POPAS (Perception ofPrevalence of Aggression Scale) suggested by the author NicoOud was used for the research together with an additionally createdquestionnaire. 300 mental care nurses working in State’s psychiatriccare hospitals were participating in the research. Results. Afterevaluating the type of aggression prevalence in State’s psychiatric care hospitals it was concluded that two thirds of nurses experienceverbal aggression; every third nurse experiences threatening verbalaggression; almost one third of nurses experience humiliating andprovocative forms of aggression. In average every fifth nurse facesthe form of physical aggression, including severe physical violence.Half of the respondents state that once they face an aggressivepatient they inform their colleagues before going to the ward ofsuch patient; every fourth respondent removes unnecessary irritants;every third respondent tries not to show his or her fear, talksto patient, tries to calm him or her down; and almost one fourthof the respondents said that in case the aggression is unavoidablethey inform the physicians and physically restricts the patientunder physician’s orders. The probability of verbal aggression,threatening verbal aggression and provocative aggressive behavioris two times higher if the patient suffers from mental and behaviordisorders; mean while, often and very often the probability of patient’ssevere violent behavior towards himself or herself is threetimes higher comparing to the patients who are not diagnosed withsuch disorders.Conclusions. Most often the nurses face verbal and threateningverbal aggression, humiliating aggressive patient behavior, whichhappen often or very often.

Keyword(s): aggression, violence, nursing, nurse, patient, mental health
DOI: 10.5200/sm-hs.2014.134
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