“Why do nurses do not report”: A qualitative study of underreported workplace violence (WPV) in emergency department (ED)

Abstract

Violence is a serious problem against emergency nurses which negatively affects the quality of nursing care unit. Most emergency nurses have accepted violence as part of their work. So many violences were not reported for some reasons related of their experiences. The objective was to explore WPV based on the internal circumstances of the ED nurses. A descriptive phenomenological approach was conducted in this study by utilising in-depth interviews. There were eight ED nurses whom selected by purposive sampling. The collected data were thematic analysed by using Miles and Huberman technique. The study identified three themes, (1) Dilemma of nurses in reporting, (2) “ready or not you have to deal with it”, and (3) the iceberg phenomena. The finding illustrates the internal factors that influenced the nurses in reporting WPV. The study emphasised that hospitals should eliminate the “normalization” of violence to reduce the incidents, and moving from “blame culture” to “learning culture” in order to build “reporting culture”. Moreover, education and training program should be reinforced regarding all forms of unacceptable violence. Furthermore, top managers must protect and provide adequate support to the staff who experienced the violence.