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Pre-hospital emergency nurses, frequently exposed to high-stress situations, are at risk for burnout and stress-related issues, affecting their overall well-being. The Professional Quality of Life (ProQoL) scale, widely used among hospital nurses, remains untested in pre-hospital emergency settings.
To adapt and validate the ProQoL scale for pre-hospital emergency contexts and explore the protective role of emotional intelligence in professional well-being.
A mixed-method study was conducted. The qualitative approach involved semi-structured interviews to inform the modification of items for adapting the ProQoL to the pre-hospital emergency setting. A quantitative method was applied to assess the relationship between emotional intelligence and professional well-being through content and face validity measures.
Qualitative interviews suggested refining the ProQoL for pre-hospital emergency settings, emphasising factors such as job satisfaction and professional conduct. The revised 21-item Pre-Hospital Emergency-Professional Quality of Life (PHE-ProQoL) scale demonstrated strong content validity (I-CVI: 0.86-1, S-CVI: 0.9) and face validity. Significant correlations were observed between emotional intelligence and professional well-being, with negative correlations between emotional intelligence and both burnout (Pearson's r = −0.859) and post-traumatic stress (Pearson's r = −0.792), and a positive correlation with compassion satisfaction (Pearson's r = +0.917). Pre-hospital nurses displayed moderate levels of compassion satisfaction (27.3 ± 9.81), high emotional intelligence (28.0 ± 9.58), especially in empathy, and substantial levels of burnout (22.5 ± 6.09) and stress (21.2 ± 4.3).
The study found that pre-hospital emergency nurses exhibit moderate compassion satisfaction and above-average emotional intelligence, particularly in perceiving and managing others' emotions. However, they also experience significant levels of burnout and post-traumatic stress.
Burnout and post-traumatic stress significantly affect pre-hospital emergency nurses. Enhancing emotional intelligence is crucial for their well-being. Nursing managers now have access to a validated and reliable tool to assess this.
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.
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