Risk of Burnout among Emergency Department Staff as a Result of Violence and Aggression from Patients and Their Relatives

Anja Schablon, Jan Felix Kersten, Albert Nienhaus, Hans Werner Kottkamp, Wilfried Schnieder, Greta Ullrich, Karin Schäfer, Lisa Ritzenhöfer, Claudia Peters and Tanja Wirth
Additional contact information
Anja Schablon: Institute for Health Services Research in Dermatology and Nursing, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20251 Hamburg, Germany
Jan Felix Kersten: Institute for Health Services Research in Dermatology and Nursing, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20251 Hamburg, Germany
Albert Nienhaus: Institute for Health Services Research in Dermatology and Nursing, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20251 Hamburg, Germany
Hans Werner Kottkamp: Protestant Hospital of the Bethel Foundation, 33617 Bielefeld, Germany
Wilfried Schnieder: Klinikum Herford, Emergency Department, Medizin Campus OWL of the Ruhr University Bochum, 32049 Herford, Germany
Greta Ullrich: Zentrale Notaufnahme, Paracelsus-Klinik Henstedt-Ulzburg, 24558 Henstedt-Ulzburg, Germany
Karin Schäfer: Prevention Service, Institution for Statutory Accident Insurance and Prevention in the Healthcare and Welfare Services, Helmholtzstrasse 2, 80636 Munich, Germany
Lisa Ritzenhöfer: Prevention Department, Accident Insurance Institution Hessen, Leonardo-da-Vinci-Allee 20, 60486 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Claudia Peters: Institute for Health Services Research in Dermatology and Nursing, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20251 Hamburg, Germany
Tanja Wirth: Institute for Occupational and Maritime Medicine (ZfAM), University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), 20459 Hamburg, Germany

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 9, 1-15

Abstract: Emergency department staff are often affected by incidents of violence. The aim of the study was to generate data on the frequency of violence by patients and accompanying relatives and the correlation between experienced aggression, a possible risk of burnout and a high sense of stress. Additionally, the buffering effect of good preventive preparation of care staff by the facility on aggressive visitors and patients was examined. In this cross-sectional study, members of the German Society for Interdisciplinary Emergency and Acute Medicine were surveyed. The investigation of risk factors, particularly experiences of verbal and physical violence, as well as exhaustion and stress, was carried out using ordinal regression models. A total of 349 staff from German emergency departments took part in the survey, 87% of whom had experienced physical violence by patients and 64% by relatives. 97% had been confronted with verbal violence by patients and 94% by relatives. Violence by relatives had a negative effect on perceived stress. High resilience or effective preparation of employees for potential attacks was shown to have a protective effect with regard to the burnout risk and perceived stress. Therefore, management staff play a major role in preventing violence and its impact on employees.

Keywords: workplace violence; emergency department staff; burnout (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/4945/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/4945/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:9:p:4945-:d:796796

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().