A Descriptive Study of Suffered and Witnessed Aggressions in Two Rehabilitative Italian Units

Aggression issues experienced on the workplace has been globally recognized as a public health issue. Nurses are exposed to a very high risk of becoming victims of workplace aggression.

The study describes this phenomenon from nurses perspective in two units resulted to be the more exposed to aggressive behaviour at San Raffaele Hospital in Milan.

We applied a semi-structured interview to volunteer staff members of the rehabilitative psychiatric and neurological wards of San Raffaele Hospital in Milan. We collected general data on 55 workers, their previous experiences of suffered or witnessed aggression, locations and timing of attacks, methods used to report attacks, subjective opinion about drives, management modalities of aggressive phenomena and any physical and/or psychological impacts.

85% suffered and 80% witnessed aggressions, especially non-physical, mostly in the corridor at 7.00-8.00 pm. The 78.7% reported no emotional trauma whereas the 21.3% reported physical injury. Aggressive behaviours linked to the patient's pathology were more easily tolerated. According to participants opinion, the interaction between psychopathological aspects and environmental features increase the risk of an aggressive behaviour. The 81% of interviewed reported to be able to manage patients' aggressiveness considering their previous experiences more helpful than training.

We confirm literature data about high percentage of witnessed and suffered aggression and the well-known healthworkers tendency to consider violent and aggressive behaviours as "part of the job" . Professional figures need to be formed with specific trainings focused on early identification, communication strategies, and de-escalation techniques.