Effect of workplace violence on psychological health in nurse of emergency department

Abstract

Objective To investigate the effect of workplace violence on psychological health in nurse of emergency department.Methods 96 nurses of emergency department from 6 third-grade class-A hospitals in Guangzhou who had experienced workplace violence since the last six months were investigated by means of SCL-90 and self-designed questionnaire according to WHO' definition of workplace violence.Results 42.16％ of workplace violence happened between late night and early dawn.The incidence of psychological violence was 72.55％.The patients and their family were the main troublemakers.The risk factors of violence were:needs not met,dissatisfaction of service,heavy drinking,in sequence.On account of workplace violence,the average score of somatization,compulsion,depression,anxiety,hostility,fear and mental disease was significantly higher than the Chinese norm (t =4.676,3.745,2.892,8.236,2.796,8.012,5.177,23.801;P ＜ 0.01 or P ＜ 0.05 ).Conclusions Workplace violence severely affects psychological health of nurse in emergency department and should be prevented and controlled by effective measures. Key words: Violence; Emergency service; Hospital; Nurse; Psychological health