Who Cares for Visiting Nurses? Workplace Violence against Home Visiting Nurses from Public Health Centers in Korea.

Eunjoo Kim,Heeseung Choi,Ju Young Yoon

doi:10.3390/ijerph17124222

Abstract

Visiting nurses are commonly exposed to workplace violence, but there is a lack of research on violence against these nurses. The purpose of this study was to identify visiting nurses’ workplace violence experiences during home visits. This study used a mixed method design. Survey data of 357 home visiting nurses from public health centers were collected for the quantitative data, and a focus group interview was conducted with six visiting nurses for the qualitative data. The quantitative data were analyzed using logistic regression, and the qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis. Younger, temporary visiting nurses and those who had previously been exposed to violent clients had a higher risk of workplace violence. The violence visiting nurses faced included not only violence during the visits but also unpredicted danger and harassment after the visit. After experiencing a violent event, visiting nurses’ attitudes and emotions changed toward nursing services. Visiting nurses were likely to deal with violence at the individual level given the insufficient organizational support system. An organizational-level safety management system should be established based on the characteristics of workplace violence risks and the nurses’ experiences in this study.

Highlights

The importance of community-based health care is being highlighted worldwide to manage the growing elderly population and chronic conditions
This study was conducted using a mixed research method to identify the workplace violence experienced by visiting nurses during home visits
The quantitative data identified the types of violence experienced by visiting nurses, the perceived workplace risk factors, and nurses’ perceptions of the safety management system

Summary

Introduction

The importance of community-based health care is being highlighted worldwide to manage the growing elderly population and chronic conditions. Against this backdrop, several countries, including the Republic of Korea (hereafter, “Korea”), have expanded home healthcare services in public health and long-term care settings [1,2]. Visiting health professionals have a wide range of occupations including nurses, psychiatrists, and social workers [3]. There are differences in organizational characteristics across countries depending on the healthcare system, the working environment in which health professionals visit patients’ homes and provide health care services is very similar. Many visiting nurses worldwide have reported that they have been exposed to workplace violence in home settings [4,5,6,7,8,9]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion