Routinized violence: examining long-term residential care workers' perspectives on involuntary treatment

In long-term residential care (LTRC), sometimes workers provide treatment that residents refuse or resist, which can cause harm to both workers and residents. In this analysis, we explored how and when workers provide involuntary treatment, when they accept or see this practice as necessary and when they reject this practice.

Following a qualitative research design, data were collected through interviews with nurses, health care aides, recreation, and housekeeping staff in two Canadian provinces and observations in two LTRC facilities in the province of Manitoba. Using an interpretive coding approach and guided by Foucauldian concepts of power and structural violence, we examined descriptions of violent situations and everyday interactions with a particular focus on involuntary treatment.

Beliefs about the potential for physical harm toward workers influenced the perceived acceptability, or rejection, of involuntary treatment. However, workers often expressed ambivalence about the acceptability of certain practices (e.g., using multiple workers to hold down a resident to provide personal care). The potential for worker injury and risk of being reprimanded were frequently identified by workers as shaping their decisions about whether to proceed with treatment to which the resident had not consented. At times, workers also expressed obligation to provide involuntary treatment for biomedical reasons, or because there seemed to be no good alternative.

Workers' narratives about involuntary treatment reflect a lack of interpersonal and organizational safety that undermines the autonomy and dignity of those for whom they provide care.