Nurse's Perception toward Factors Contributing to Violence Exposure at Complex for Mental Health in Tabuk City: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Context: Exposure to violence among health care workers, particularly nurses working in mental health, is prevalent globally. This problem results from different factors in the workplace. These factors must be understood by the nurse to deal with patients and protect themselves.
Aim: This review aimed to describe the nurses’ perception toward factors contributing to violence exposure at a complex for mental health in Tabuk city.

Methods: A scoping review based on the PRISMA guidelines includes qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method research on nurses' exposure to violence. A literature search was carried out using the following databases: MEDLINE, CINAHL, and EBSCO through the Saudi Digital Library databases. The search included studies published between January 2015 and December 2020. All the included studies were assessed for their quality. After the selection process, 26 studies that matched the inclusion criteria emerged and were incorporated into the review.

Results: This scoping review is categorized into six themes. Most of the included studies revealed that violence against nurses is outspread worldwide. The most common types of violence among nurses were physical and verbal violence. The primary source of violence was the patients or their relatives. The causal factors of violence exposure included the nature of the patient's illness, increased expectations by patients and their relatives about the care provided, shortage of drug and staff, insufficient security guards in the health settings, work experience, and skills in dealing with aggressive behavior patients. The consequences of exposure to violence among nurses were job dissatisfaction, anxiety and depression, malpractice, and high nurses' turnover. The ways to reduce exposure to workplace violence, such as training courses, improvement of security measures inside the health care settings, were reported as strategies to overcome this phenomenon.

Conclusion: Violence is situated, an interpersonal, emotional, and cognitive action involving undesirable interaction. Nurses' exposure to violence can be reduced first by perceiving contributing factors. This review highlighted the problem of nurses' exposure to different types of violence and its associated factors and ways to reduce exposure to workplace violence.