Workplace violence against cardiovascular nurses during Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Abstract Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Other. Main funding source(s): The National Federation of Orders for Nursing Professions (FNOPI - Italia) Background Workplace violence (WPV) impacts negatively both healthcare workers and healthcare organizations. Nurses are the most exposed healthcare workers to vertical WPV, also during the COVID-19 pandemic. Purpose Describing the WPV against nurses and its predictive factors in cardiovascular settings during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Methods This is a secondary analysis conducted in cardiovascular hospital settings from a larger national study between January and April 2021. Data were collected through the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI; Likert scale 1 to 4) and the adapted version of the Violence in Emergency Nursing and Triage (VENT) Questionnaire. Descriptive and logistic regression analyses were conducted. Results The analysis was conducted on 360 cardiovascular nurses (76.7% female; mean age 42.6 years, SD 10.8). Thirty per cent (n=108) of them reported WPV in last year and/or last week and 14.2% (n=51) only in last week. The number of patients was higher for nurses with WPV (mean difference [MD] +1.9; p = .030). The work environment was significantly worse for nurses with WPV: mean PES-NWI composite score (MD -0.2; p<.001); PES-NWI subscales: staffing and resource adequacy (MD -0.3; p<.001); nursing foundations for quality of care (MD -0.2; p = .005); nurse participation in hospital affairs (MD -0.3; p<.001); physician-nurse relationship (MD -0.2; p = .004). Multiple linear regression demonstrated that the risk of WPV increases when a clear nursing philosophy was not completely implemented in cardiovascular setting (odds ratio [OR] 5.29; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.07-26.05; p = .040) and the nurses restrain patients (OR 2.49; 95% CI, 1.04-5.97, p = .041). The risk of WPV decreases when protectives glasses were present (OR 0.36; 95% CI 0.19-0.70, p = .003). Conclusion Public healthcare services should reduce WPV by investing in improving the nurse work environment. Integrated and multimodal programs of prevention and management of WPV are useful to address it.