Abstract

Background: Workplace violence (WPV) is an escalating issue in healthcare that needs to be addressed to improve patient outcomes and staff satisfaction. Inpatient mental health facilities are at higher risk for safety event occurrences.

Problem: There is a practice gap in the assessment of possible violence at the practicum site with higher tolerance and acceptance that this is an acceptable event. The policies on deescalation are poorly implemented.

Methods: A pre- and post-intervention design was used to investigate the impact of the BVC tool on safety events. Data analysis included outcome measures on BVC scores, safety events, and de-escalation intervention.

Intervention: The BVC is a user-friendly simple assessment tool that scores patient behavior to indicate risk for violence as minimal, moderate, or high risk. Once identified, de-escalation intervention can be instituted to mitigate its occurrence.

Results: A total of 126 patients were assessed from 3 shifts. The BVC tool did not decrease the number of violence-related incidents as there was a heightened staff awareness and recognition of reportable events. This also improved patient assessment, documentation, use of patientcentered interventions, and improved patient care.

Conclusions: The BVC tool is recommended to be used consistently coupled with patientcentered mitigating interventions. This tool was instrumental for staff to improve their assessment skills, promote safety, and improve patient outcomes.

Author Details

Maritess B. Bernardo, DNP, MSN-Ed, BSN-RN, CNE, PCCN

Sigma Membership

Omicron Delta, Phi Pi

Type

Dissertation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Other

Research Approach

Other

Keywords:

Workplace Violence, Patient Safety, Staff Safety, Violence Predictors

Advisor

Catherine Mann

Second Advisor

Celeste Grossi

Third Advisor

Beth Marquez

Fourth Advisor

Michelle McGonigal

Degree

DNP

Degree Grantor

Chamberlain University

Degree Year

2023

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2024-03-27

Full Text of Presentation

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