Defining the severity of workplace violent events among medical and non-medical samples. A pilot study

The purpose of this study was to describe and compare medical and non-medical individuals' violence severity rank for 13 commonly cited events illustrative of workplace violence. One hundred thirty-six college students were provided a short checklist of 13 violent events in the workplace to determine the violence severity rank for each event. Two groups of college students with (n = 69) and without (n = 67) medical background participated. Student and registered nurses (medical group) agreed on the violence severity ranking of all 13 often-cited workplace violence events. Non-medical and medical groups, however, did not always agree on the degree of violence severity, especially for physical and sexual workplace violence events. Differences between groups may be explained by the possibility that nurses are socialized or desensitized in practice to possibly accept some workplace violence events as "part of the job." Gastroenterology nurses can benefit from this study by raising their sensitivity to and awareness of workplace violence in the practice setting.