Violence from Patients towards Nurses: Professional Accountability

VIOLENCE FROM PATIENTS TOWARDS NURSES
PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY
INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION(S)
STUDENT NAME
[Pick the date]

VIOLENCE FROM PATIENTS TOWARDS NURSES
PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY
2
Violence from patients towards nurses
Within the health care system, nurses play an important role who are vulnerable to
abuse and violence from patients. Australian Institute of Criminology has also identified
related issues in nursing profession and growing risks in this occupation. Disturbed mental
state and exposure to physical distress has been the core reason behind increasing client
violation in hospitals. Recently many episodes relating violence against nurses have been
identified which highlights inadequacy in the field of protection for nurses. One taken place
in The Royal Melbourne Hospital in Victoria and Wyong Hospital situated in central coast of
NSW, patients have been seen attacking nurses with knives (Pich, 2017). With both the
incidents it becomes clear that nurses in nursing profession have become exposed to physical
and verbal violence and have even started accepting it as a part of their job. Since violence
from patients towards nurses have become a significant issue that requires to be looked upon,
this paper will analyse the situation in depth while concluding with possible solutions for it.
According to World Health Organisation (WHO), violence in healthcare profession has been
due to the reason where both victim and the saviour behave in an unintentional manner in
which both physical force and threatening the other person or community along with oneself
takes place. The result of such actions may result in injury, psychological damage and
deprivation (Krug, 2002).
Violence in nursing profession has a huge impact on health care workplace which
threatens work efficiency and quality. With due respect to individual rights and integrity,
assaults on nurses have left detrimental notion on the minds of nurses and ones who wants to
become a nurse. Current literature on nursing profession suggests ensuring the safety and

VIOLENCE FROM PATIENTS TOWARDS NURSES
PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY
3
respect for the profession or else degradation and scarcity can be expected in the future and
hence this issue can be directly related to a professional issue (Sharma, 2016).
Evidences in health care profession have reported a limited number of cases where
professional nurses have been compensated for misbehaviour faced by them (Gates, 2011).
Western Australia has reported that personal threats and referral to psychiatrists have
demoralised nursing professionals to a great extent. Nurses as an individual does not want to
be disloyal to their patients regardless, lack of reporting has made the issue more reorganised.
This attitude of nurses reveals their professionalism and their dedication towards their
profession. But recent attacks and bullying of nurses have began a new revolution in this
field wherein the culprits are been accused by state criminal departments and The
International Council of Nurses described this issue as a “World-wide Epidemic” (Roche,
2010).
Abusing and physical attacks have shown post traumatic depressions among nurses which
have made them consuming alcohol and even drugs along with suffering chronic pain. Minor
scratches and bruises to serious injuries like fractures, stabbing and even death have been
reported lately in nursing journals. A nurse was punched in face and was stabbed by a butter
knife in her breast and back area. This incident took place in 2011 in NSW region where a
mentally disturbed patient stabbed a nurse to death. Following it was another incident in
Southern Australia where a nurse was kidnapped, raped and killed (The Conversation, 2017).
These two incidents shows the exposure of nursing profession to patient related violence and
their adverse affects on patient- nurse relation. Nurses can treat their patients less
empathically and give up their work quality if similar incidents of violence are experienced
by more of them.

VIOLENCE FROM PATIENTS TOWARDS NURSES
PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY
4
According to a survey made by International Council of Nurses (ICN), studies conducted in
different countries healthcare departments reveals the amount of physical violence in
workplaces and reasons behind quitting nursing job. The study collected various samples and
prepared a questionnaire where hospitals and health care professional were asked to share
their individual experience in their profession. As shown in the figure below, indicates that
physically attacked nurses were 2.7 times more who desired to quit job as nursing than nurses
who have not yet faced violence attack issue.
Source: (Hancock, 2017)
Database research made from CINAHL and MEDLINE reviews on the impact of patient
violence against nurses working in healthcare workplaces by making interactions with nurses.
According to the survey, workplace violence and bullying victims made patients more
comfortable as they can share their experience with friends and relatives. Local hospitals and
staff had to make anonymous calls to officials for reporting abuse and seeking help from