Recently, in India, we have witnessed numerous cases of violence against healthcare workers. This was happening for long but with the availability of universal smartphone based communication tools like Whatsapp, these incidents have begun to be shared widely. Sudden rise in the number of cases is explained by the better communication now. Still, the big question is, how can be prevent violence against healthcare workers? But do do that first we need to define violence.
What I think is that Violence includes, shouting, threatening, and showing violent gestures to healthcare workers, not merely physical violence. Currently, there is no mechanism in India where people can register violence other than physical violence. What is your opinion on this?
Thanks for raising the question. I would like to add: any act of misbehavior or disrespect to the staff, verbal or non-verbal.
Thankyou Nahla!
I think you are right in saying that even misbehaviour or disrespect to staff should come under the definition of violence. Problem is that in India, we have become so used to misbehavior and disrespect incidences that we tend to think that only physical assault is violence
According to the World Health Organization, workplace violence is “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation”.
The POPAS is one of the most complete scale to assess WV, with15 forms of violence (e.g., verbal aggression, threatening verbal aggression, mild violence against self, severe physical violence).
Preventing workplace violence require multiple actions such as developping a written policy, improving workplace design, training employees to recognize and deal with patients aggression.
Underreporting violence is a global problem, even in our Westnern organizations. Workers may be scared to report, they may think it won't change anything or they can normalize their victimization.
Sending you several links for more info.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ab.20038/epdf
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/vio.2015.0042
Article The effects of trivialization of workplace violence on its v...
Article Evaluation of an Education and Training Program to Prevent a...
Link for the POPAS : http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ab.20038/epdf
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