Pediatric emergency nurses' workplace violence experiences: A qualitative study

Workplace violence is a crucial problem experienced by health workers who serve at the emergency service. The identification of emergency nurses' workplace experiences is of importance to the prevention of violence and the development of solutions.

This study was performed to identify the workplace violence experiences of the nurses working for the pediatric emergency units.

A total of 20 nurses who experienced violence at the emergency service participated in the study that was conducted as qualitative research. The data were collected with the semi-structured interview form and were evaluated by using thematic analysis.

Five themes, namely, "the characteristics of violence", "the causes of violence", "the approach during/after the violence", "the consequences of the violence for the person", and the "consequences of the violence for the profession", were identified. Nurses stated that they often experienced verbal violence due to patient relatives' unmet expectations, the failure of patient relatives to understand treatments and practices, and the heavy workload, they endeavored to eliminate violence by trying to communicate with perpetrators of the violence, calling the security staff, and reporting the violence to their managers, and they were individually and professionally affected by the violence.

Nurses are negatively affected by workplace violence. Pediatric emergency nurses should be supported with training programs and policies to be developed for the prevention and solution of violence.