Date
12-16-2025
Department
School of Nursing
Degree
Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)
Chair
Lynee' Sanders
Keywords
Workplace violence, nursing, emergency department, workplace aggression, emergency nursing
Disciplines
Nursing
Recommended Citation
Hutchens, Ann Marie, "Workplace Violence: A Paradigm Shift" (2025). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 7860.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/7860
Abstract
Workplace violence (WPV) has reached epidemic proportions. WPV poses devastating results on the healthcare industry: affecting quality of care and patient outcomes, contribute to the development of physical and psychological conditions for nurses, and reduce the healthcare teams’ level of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The United States is already facing a nursing shortage due to baby boomers retiring and an increase chronic disease and the elder population. Although strongly prevalent, WPV is significantly underreported. It is believed that the low rate of reporting is a consequence of apathy that violence is an occupational hazard, and that nothing will change. To adequately address the issue of workplace violence, it is critical to first define, identify types of incidents, track patterns or behaviors and educate staff. The aim of this project was to define workplace violence, increase awareness and incident reporting, and provide strategies to identify potential perpetrators, as well as provide skills to de-escalate and get appropriate support. An educational program was developed utilizing the ANA #EndNurseAbuse campaign, implemented, and a pre/post survey conducted. The survey measured personal experiences, reporting violent incidents and hazards, instruction on WPV policies and procedures, training on WPV prevention (de-escalation and crisis intervention), and post incident response. WPV is acknowledged as a significant issue, the full scope of the problem is not completely known due to substantial underreporting. To reduce, we first must establish its prevalence and then adopt prevention strategies, such as policies, training and education, security measures, communication, and incident response plan.
