Citation

Medicine TLR. Lancet Respir. Med. 2023; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/S2213-2600(23)00146-7

PMID

37086738

Abstract

Critical care specialists work in several hospital departments, from the emergency department to paediatric and adult intensive care units (ICUs), and in all of these settings, workplace violence (WPV) is experienced by team members. Acts or threats of violence, harassment, intimidation, or verbal abuse against employees inside or outside the workplace can have far-reaching effects, but many health professionals and organisations are poorly prepared to prevent or respond to WPV. A better understanding of the scale, risk factors for, and impact of WPV on individuals and health-care teams will be key to developing effective measures and allocating sufficient resources to promote the safety and wellbeing of health-care workers and the optimal care of patients.

In a survey presented at this year's SCCM Congress, 73% of 598 clinicians from 69 countries said that they had experienced WPV within the past year. The most common form was verbal, followed by emotional and physical violence; the perpetrators were reported to be mainly patients or their family members. Another survey found that 71% of 3539 respondents who worked in the emergency department had witnessed an assault, and 47% had experienced physical violence themselves. A survey of more than 500 physicians in the USA found that 24% of women and 22% of men had been harassed on social media, mainly with death threats; 16% of women and 1·5% of men had experienced sexual harassment online. However, many critical care specialists do not report the violence they experience. Under-reporting might arise partly because WPV is an expected part of the job, because health-care workers feel that reporting violence might make them a target of abuse, or because of fears that team dynamics will be negatively affected if WPV has occurred between team members and cannot be resolved. Moreover, the commercial systems used to report WPV do not use standardised definitions and terminology, and are insufficient to allow data aggregation to understand the true prevalence and to support the effective management of WPV...

Language: en