The effect of violence prevention strategies on perceptions of workplace safety: A study of medical‐surgical and mental health nurses

Abstract

To explore associations between specific violence prevention strategies and nurses' perceptions of workplace safety in medical-surgical and mental health settings. Workplace violence is on the rise globally. Nurses have the highest risk of violence due to the nature of their work. Violence rates are particularly high among USA and Canadian nurses. Although multiple violence prevention strategies are currently in place in public healthcare organizations in British Columbia, Canada, it is unknown whether these approaches are associated with nurses' perceptions of workplace safety. This is an exploratory correlational design using secondary data. Using data obtained from a province-wide survey of nurses between March 2017 - January 2018, this study included 771 nurses from medical-surgical and 189 nurses from mental health settings. Data were analysed using ordinal logistic regressions. For medical-surgical and mental health nurses, greater perceptions of workplace safety were related to employers listening to them with respect to violence prevention strategies. Nurses in both settings were more likely to feel safe when they were not expected to physically intervene during a code white situation. Medical-surgical nurses were more likely to feel safe when code white incident reviews were conducted and fixed alarms were used. Mental health nurses were more likely to report feeling safe when they had enough properly trained code white responders on their unit. Nurse-employer engagement is critical to nurses' perceptions of feeling safe at work. Engagement opportunities include nurses' involvement in discussions about appropriate violence prevention strategies, collaborative debriefing after violent incidents and co-development and updates of patients' behavioural care plans.