Citation

Murray RM, Davis AL, Shepler LJ, Moore-Merrell L, Troup WJ, Allen JA, Taylor JA. New Solut. 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Baywood Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1048291119893388

PMID

31841060

Abstract

Emergency Medical Service (EMS) responders deliver patient care in high-risk, high-stress, and highly variable scenarios. This unpredictable work environment exposes EMS responders to many risks, one of which is violence. The primary goals of this systematic literature review were to (1) define the issue of violence experienced by EMS responders and (2) identify the risk factors of violence associated with the EMS profession. An innovative inclusion of industrial literature with traditional peer-reviewed literature was performed. Of 387 articles retrieved, 104 articles were assessed and reviewed. Career exposure for EMS responders to at least one instance of verbal and/or physical violence was between 57 and 93 percent. There is a great need for rigorously designed, nationally representative examinations of occupational exposures in order to better understand the temporal associations of violence, cumulative occupational stressors, and the outcomes of physical and psychosocial injuries that are occurring as a result of exposures to violence.

Keywords systematic literature review, workplace violence, emergency medical services, first responders

Language: en

Keywords

emergency medical services; first responders; systematic literature review; workplace violence