Workplace Violence in Healthcare: Causes, Regulations, and Prevention Strategies

Workplace violence between patients and caregivers is a fundamental challenge in society. For example, healthcare providers often interact with unstable patients who could be under the influence of drugs, are gang members, or have a history of violence. Such aggressive patients might inflict physical and psychological harm to caregivers through threats, verbal abuse, harassment, and hostility. As a result, nurses are subjected to unnecessary stress, trauma, and injuries that impair their duties and responsibilities in a healthcare environment. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, workplace violence in hospitals is more common than in other industry sectors, which raises the need for intervention. Analyzing political, legal, and legislative factors that influence workplace violence and preventive measures and protocols in hospital settings would be essential in solving this serious problem.

The Political, Legal, and Legislative Factors that Influence Violence in Healthcare Setting

Various risk factors facilitate violence in health care. Patients are the main initiators of workplace violence in a healthcare environment; however, political, legal, and legislative factors also contribute to the problem. Thus, political factors include the understaffing of nurses, which implies that the government has failed to employ adequate personnel to deal with the increasing population and reduced the number of older nurses who retire. As a result, the ratio of healthcare providers is low, which reduces efficiency in caring for patients who often become agitated, resulting in violence. Another political factor is inadequate healthcare resources, whereby the government fails to distribute adequate resources for healthcare. As such, such a situation fosters poor quality of care and patients’ negative attitudes toward healthcare providers. The insufficient allocation of funds is another political factor influencing healthcare violence. The government does not provide enough funds for hospitals to invest in security. At the same time, the legal and legislative factors that foster violence in the healthcare environment consist of the Affordable Care Act, which has enabled wide access to healthcare services via government-subsidized insurance coverage. As a result, healthcare centers have been overwhelmed, which leads to long waiting hours and often causes patient dissatisfaction and workplace violence. Another legislative factor is the lack of signs in the hospitals, warning against workplace violence. Thus, patients, who could be under the influence of drugs, perceive violence as normal in healthcare. The lack of clear legislation to prevent and report workplace violence is another legal factor that encourages the problem, which causes most violent encounters between patients and care providers to go unreported. Thus, it is clear that various political, legal, and legislative factors influence workplace violence in healthcare.

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