Effectiveness of Workplace Lateral Violence Training for Healthcare Workers: A Scoping Review

Violence is common in healthcare settings. Several studies have highlighted the prevalence of lateral violence (i.e violence between colleagues) among healthcare workers. For healthcare organizations, the preferred solution is often to provide workplace training to reduce such violence. However, few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of such training. This scoping review of 19 studies reveals several findings. The main conclusions are that these studies are limited in their ability to provide a clear answer as to the effectiveness of this type of training, given the small number of studies on the subject, their great heterogeneity and their shortcomings on several levels (i.e. conceptual, methodological, and evaluative). The absence of criteria to evaluate the learning transfer that may result from such training is an important shortcoming. In light of these observations, avenues are proposed to guide future research.