Breaking Point: Violence Against Long-Term Care Staff

Area of Science:

• Gerontology and Healthcare Management
• Occupational Health and Safety in Clinical Settings

Background:

• Direct resident care in long-term care facilities is predominantly provided by personal support workers and registered practical nurses.
• These healthcare professionals, predominantly women, regularly face physical, verbal, and sexual violence from residents.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the causes, impacts, and prevention barriers of resident-to-staff violence in long-term care.
• To understand the phenomenon from the perspective of frontline healthcare workers.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative study consulting fifty-six staff members across seven communities in Ontario, Canada.
• Exploration of immediate and underlying causes, health impacts, and prevention challenges.

Main Results:

• Immediate causes include resident fear, confusion, and agitation.
• Underlying causes identified: task-driven work, understaffing, poor resident placement, and insufficient time for relational care.
• Violence is viewed as a symptom of institutional undervaluation of staff and residents, leading to staff injuries, emotional trauma, job dissatisfaction, and burnout.

Conclusions:

• Barriers to violence prevention include inadequate training, resources, systemic underfunding, lack of recognition of the problem's severity, and limited public awareness.
• Addressing resident-to-staff violence requires systemic changes that value both staff and residents within long-term care settings.