Dealing with verbal abuse: evaluation of the efficacy of a workshop for student nurses

Verbal abuse is a problem that can confront all health care professionals in their day to day practice. Studies into abuse of professionals have emphasised the stressful effects of non-physical violence and have shown that it is often the most inexperienced members of various professions who are in the 'front line' of such attacks. The group of staff particularly at risk are student nurses (HSC 1987). This paper presents an evaluative study of a workshop devised to help student nurses to deal with verbal abuse (Wondrak 1989). Psychiatric nursing students were studied from two intakes into a training course. A simulated situation of an interview with a verbally abusive patient was video taped and assessment was made by independent raters of each subjects ability to deal with the situation. 14 of the subjects then attended a verbal abuse workshop and when re-tested, their ability to deal with abuse was compared with those 15 student nurses who did not attend a workshop. The findings are encouraging, indicating that there is a significant change in the experimental group on a number of variables, related to both practical and emotional aspects of dealing with abuse. Thus the efficacy of the short workshop in improving ability to deal with verbal abuse was demonstrated.