The article “Nurse Exposure to Physical and Nonphysical Violence, Bullying, and Sexual Harassment: A Quantitative Review” represents one of the many scholarly efforts initiated by researchers to comprehend the dynamics of nursing violence in practice settings. This critique reviews the introductory sections of this article with the view to illuminating demonstrable actions undertaken by the authors to locate the problem of nurse-targeted violence in the practice context. The article, in my considered opinion, reinforces the widely held perception that nurses are at high risk for workplace aggression and sexual harassment by patients, family members and colleagues.
The title of the article suggests that it is a quantitative review of available literature on various forms of physical and nonphysical violence and sexual harassment targeted at nurses (Spector, Zhou, & Che, 2014). Although the article’s title directs readers to the variables of interest to the review, it is my view that the authors assume a rather wide scope by covering four variables (physical violence, nonphysical violence, bullying, and sexual harassment) in a single review. A narrow and focused scope, in my view, would have yielded rich contextual information on the dynamics of nursing violence in practice settings.
The abstract of the article is professional and provides concise but understandable insights into the objectives of the study, design, data sources, procedure, results, and conclusions. From the abstract, it is easy for a reader to understand the dynamics of nursing violence by type, setting, source, and geographical region. Overall, the abstract demonstrates that 33.3% of nursing professionals worldwide are exposed to physical violence and bullying, 66.6% to nonphysical violence, and 25% to sexual harassment (Spector et al., 2014). This view is consistent with the assertion made by Demir and Rodwell (2012) that nurses are at particularly high risk for workplace aggression and sexual harassment.
The critiqued article is a quantitative review of available empirical scholarship on nursing violence and, as such, it is not guided by a research question or hypothesis. However, the purpose of the article is clear that it aims to not only provide nurse exposure rates to violence by different types of violence and in different settings, but also to integrate the various studies on nursing violence to enable stakeholders to draw conclusions about differences in exposure rates and sources of violence. This is a noble objective as it will enable stakeholders and policymakers to develop context-specific interventions aimed at addressing the various forms of violence and sexual harassment according to location and source.
The article provides a rich contextual background on the issues of interest to enable the reader understand the variables under consideration. A perusal of the introduction enables the reader to understand that, although workplace violence and sexual harassment have been deeply entrenched in practice settings, no concerted effort has been made to locate the violence according to type, setting, source, and geographical location (Spector et al., 2014). The literature review elaborates the variables and provides several country-specific indicators on the magnitude of nurse-targeted violence and sexual harassment in a bid to provide the basis or justification for conducting the review. In their study on workplace aggression for hospital nurses, Demir and Rodwell (2012) emphasize the need for studies aimed at establishing the antecedents (sources) of workplace violence and bullying.
Overall, the critiqued sections of the article strongly reinforce the perception that nursing professionals are at high risk for workplace aggression and sexual harassment by patients, family members and colleagues. The information contained in the abstract, purpose statement, introduction and the literature review of the article is clear that workplace aggression and sexual harassment targeted at nurses are real challenges that require immediate intervention.
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