Citation

Kobayashi Y, Oe M, Ishida T, Matsuoka M, Chiba H, Uchimura N. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020; 17(8): e2747.

Affiliation

Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kurume University School of Medicine, Asahi-machi 67, Kurume 830-0011, Japan.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph17082747

PMID

32316142

Abstract

Workplace violence (WPV) in healthcare settings has drawn attention for over 20 years, yet few studies have investigated the association between WPV and psychological consequences. Here, we used a cross-sectional design to investigate (1) the 12-month prevalence of workplace violence (WPV), (2) the characteristics of WPV, and (3) the relationship between WPV and burnout/secondary traumatic stress among 599 mental healthcare nurses (including assistant nurses) from eight hospitals. Over 40% of the respondents had experienced WPV within the past 12 months. A multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that occupation and burnout were each significantly related to WPV. Secondary traumatic stress was not related to WPV. Our results suggest that WPV may be a long-lasting and/or cumulative stressor rather than a brief, extreme horror experience and may reflect specific characteristics of psychological effects in psychiatric wards. A longitudinal study measuring the severity and frequency of WPV, work- and non-work-related stressors, risk factors, and protective factors is needed, as is the development of a program that helps reduce the psychological burden of mental healthcare nurses due to WPV.

Language: en

Keywords

burnout; mental healthcare nurses; nursing license; secondary traumatic stress; workplace violence