The Current Level of Violence That Is Being Experienced by Nurses, Research Paper Example

A needs assessment will first be conducted using a survey questionnaire and interviews with a random sample of nurses in the facility as well as with the facility’s managers. The instrument developed by Wilkes et al. (2010) is intended to be used in this phase of the project to determine the current level of violence that is being experienced by nurses in the identified facility. More in depth interviews with the nurse managers of each shift are to be conducted in order to ascertain what they perceive as particular needs of their facility in the area of violence prevention.

Planning

Following the needs assessment, planning will be conducted in coordination with nurse managers to develop a violence prevention program that is deemed to be most suitable for the facility. This program is not generic since it will be in line with the specific needs of the facility as based on the results of the needs assessment to be conducted. In developing this plan, the factors affecting violence in the ED which were identified in such studies as Gillespie (2008), Keely (2002), Li et al. (2010), and Gillespie et al. (2010) will be taken into consideration. Furthermore, the actual plan shall consist of appropriate elements from the recommendations of Kuhn (2004), Gillespie (2008), ACH (2010), Kennedy (2005), and Keely (2002).

Implementation

A pre-implementation period of 30 days will be set, in which time data about the incidences of violent occurrences will be collected. This is in order to capture a cross-sectional view of the actual incidents of violence experienced by nurses in the facility. Once the planned program has been completed, it will be implemented on the facility and the results will be observed for 30 days.

Evaluation

Evaluation of the effectiveness of the clinical project will be conducted in three levels. In the first level, comparisons between the actual incidences of violence within the 30-day pre-implementation period will be compared with the number of incidences during the 30-day implementation observation period. This level will ascertain if any visible decrease in violence is evident. The second level will compare the responses of nurses and nurse managers to the survey about experienced workplace violence prior to the implementation period, with their responses in a similar survey after 30 days of implementation. This repeat of the survey is necessary in order to assess whether or not there has been an improvement in the violence management of the facility based on the experience of the nurses. This will determine the perceived change in level of violence as experienced by nurses which is another indicator that the violence prevention program was effective. The third level is a comparison of the weekly performance evaluation records of nurses during the observation period with their existing records prior to the evaluation period. These weekly performance evaluations are already being conducted at the present. This project does not intend to conduct the evaluation, but to compare evaluation records of nurses prior to the implementation of the project and 30 days after the project’s implementation. The final phase assesses if the proposed project ultimately intends to find evidence of whether or not helping nurses have a less violence-prone working environment will increase their ability to perform their duties effectively.

Dissemination of Information

Upon completion of the project, a formal presentation shall be prepared describing and substantiating the best practices that were derived. The outcomes of the project will be presented to the nursing staff and managers of the facility in the hospital conference room.

Summary

Reviewed literature showed that workplace violence is a highly relevant concern of nurses in the ED setting, and that such violence negatively affects nurses’ well-being and impairs their ability to fulfill their responsibilities. Literature also revealed possible elements that can be included in the development of a violence prevention program for EDs, as well as an instrument that can be developed to measure the level of violence experienced and perceived by nurses in the ED. Several factors were found to affect the risk of violence in the ED, and nurses were likewise found to have different ways to address exposure to violence. Thus, it was inferred that a clinical project conducted on an ED nursing unit with the objective of reducing incidences and perception of violence among nurses can lead to an improvement in such ED nurses’ performance and well-being.