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To describe how workplace violence (WPV) is experienced by nurses in hospitals and community services and identify protective and risk factors.
An online cross-sectional national study was conducted from January to April 2021 in Italy. Hospitals and community services were involved in the study. The survey combined the adapted and validated Italian version of the Violence in Emergency Nursing and Triage (VENT) questionnaire, which explores the episodes of WPV experienced during the previous 12 months, the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI) and some additional questions about staffing levels extracted from a previous RN4CAST study. Nurses working in all clinical settings and community services were invited to participate in the survey. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. We adhered to the STROBE reporting guidelines.
A total of 6079 nurses completed the survey, 32.4% (n = 1969) had experienced WPV in the previous 12 months, and 46% (n = 920) reported WPV only in the previous week. The most significant protective factors were nurses' age, patients' use of illegal substances, attitude of individual nurses and considering effective the organization's procedures for preventing and managing episodes of violence. The most significant risk factors included workload, recognizing violence as an inevitable part of the job, patients' cultural aspects and patients' agitated behaviour. The frequency of WPV was significantly higher in certain areas, such as the emergency department and in mental health wards.
Workplace violence (WPV) against nurses is a very frequent and concerning issue, especially in hospitals and community services. Based on our findings, integrated and multimodal programmes for prevention and management of WPV are recommended. More attention and resources need to be allocated to reduce WPV by improving the quality of nurses' workplace environment and implementing violence-free policies for hospitals.
Workplace verbal and physical violence is a widespread phenomenon, both in hospital and community settings, and even during COVID-19 pandemic. This problem is exacerbated by the lack of effective reporting systems, fear of retaliation and the tendency to consider violence as an inevitable part of the job. The characteristics of professionals, patients, work environment and organizational factors are involved in the spread of workplace violence, determining its multifactorial nature. Integrated and multimodal programmes to prevent and manage of workplace violence are probably the only way to effectively counteract workplace violence against nurses. Healthcare policymakers, managers of hospital and community services need to proactively prevent and effectively manage and monitor episodes of violence. Nurses need to feel protected and safeguarded against any form of verbal or physical violence, to provide high-quality care in a totally safe environment.
No patient or public contribution.
To identify changes in mental health status among nursing professionals in a Brazilian municipality during the COVID-19 pandemic.
An observational and longitudinal study.
Using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, the presence of depressive symptoms was evaluated among 690 nursing professionals in the city of Pelotas, Brazil, at two moments: June/July 2020 and June/July 2021.
13.0% incidence of depressive symptoms was identified; as well as 12.2% remission; 24.1% persistence and 50.7% absence. Among the factors associated with the worst prognoses we can mention female gender, greater workload, feeling of overload, illness of family members or friends due to COVID-19 and use of psychotropic drugs
There was significant mobility in the diagnosis of depression among the professionals studied during the period analysed, with incidence of new cases of significant depression and greater than the number of remissions. In addition to sociodemographic aspects, traumatic experiences and exposure to continuous overload were associated with persistence and incidence of new cases.
With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, several studies have shown an increase in depressive symptoms among nursing professionals; however, understanding the long-term effects of this scenario is still a challenge.
What problem did the study address? This study investigates changes in the mental health status of nursing professionals working at different care levels, taking the prevalence of screening for depression as a proxy, during a period of a year during the COVID-19 pandemic.
What were the main findings? Between both data collection moments, 2020 e 2021, there was a significant percentage of professionals with persistent depression, in addition to a significant proportion of incident cases that slightly exceeded the number of remissions and the factors associated with the worst prognoses were sociodemographic aspects such as gender and emotional stressors like illness of family members or close friends due to COVID-19, in addition to those related to the organisation and support provided by the services, such as workload and feeling of overload.
Where and on whom will the research have an impact? This study will impact the nursing professionals and in role of the health services in order to establishing actions that contribute to minimising the deleterious effects of the pandemic on the mental health of their Nursing teams.
The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines were adopted in this study.
No Patient or Public Contribution.
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