Abstract
BackgroundPrevious research has established exposure to workplace aggression as a significant risk factor for employee functioning, well-being, and health. However, less is known about effective prevention and management strategies. The main objectives of the current project were to determine the impact of physical and psychological aggression on the well-being, health, and work ability of employees in the child welfare service and to establish whether a strong psychosocial safety climate and an ethical infrastructure are effective with regard to protecting employees against aggression. This project may help identify the specific risks child welfare workers are exposed to, the impact of workplace aggression on their health and well-being, and the most effective strategies to manage the problem. Furthermore, the findings should be central for developing laws and regulations and to any political decision on measures to tackle aggression in the workplace.MethodsThe study will employ two prospective data collections. Firstly, a three-wave longitudinal survey with a 6-month time lag between measurement points will be conducted among all 1,500 employees in the child welfare services in Oslo Municipality, Norway. Data will have a multilevel structure and will be linked to registry data on sickness absence. Secondly, a quantitative daily diary study over a 14-day period will include 150 of the respondents from the main survey study. The survey questionnaires mainly comprise well-established and psychometrically validated indicators of workplace aggression, health and well-being, psychosocial safety climate, ethical infrastructure, and other relevant factors. The Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics (REC) in Norway (REC South East) have approved this project (project no. 28496).DiscussionThis project will identify the impact of workplace aggression on child protection workers as well as provide information on how organizations can actively manage exposure to workplace aggression. The findings may serve as a starting point for intervention studies as well as the development of policies and guidelines on how to handle workplace aggression.
Highlights
Child welfare work is concerned with ensuring the welfare and well-being of children by assisting parents in giving their children the best possible upbringing
As previous research has shown that personal resources only have a protective effect in cases of no or only low exposure to aggression, and not in cases of high exposure (Nielsen and Einarsen, 2018), resources provided by the employer seem to be especially vital with regard to counteracting the impact of workplace aggression
The majority of the items are taken from two established indicators for assessing workplace violence (Barling et al, 2001; Gadegaard et al, 2018), whereas some were developed for this study in order to fully capture the forms of violence that child protection employees can experience
Summary
Information and Demographics The background and demographic factors that will be recorded in the survey include age, gender, marital status, employment status (part- vs. full-time), seniority, education, shift work, leadership responsibility, position as a union representative, and number of child protection cases worked with during the last 6 months. Physical and Psychological Aggression Exposure to physical violence and threats of violence from children, youths, and their relatives will be assessed using a 21-item questionnaire. The majority of the items are taken from two established indicators for assessing workplace violence (Barling et al, 2001; Gadegaard et al, 2018), whereas some were developed for this study in order to fully capture the forms of violence that child protection employees can experience. The added items were based on suggestions from the reference group. This inventory captures exposure to specific forms of violence rather than to more general categories, such as those found in other scales like the Perception of Aggression Scale (Palmstierna and Barredal, 2006; De Benedictis et al, 2012). Example items are: “Been cornered or placed in a position that was difficult to get out of ” and TABLE 1 | Overview of inventories in the main survey questionnaire
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