Measures for preventing violence in emergency departments

Despite all efforts, workplace violence remains an important unsolved issue in health care. Preventing and controlling workplace violence requires commitment from and participation by employees and managers at all levels. The objective of this study was to improve violence prevention and to reduce accidents caused by the violence in healthcare workplaces, especially in emergency departments (EDs), by gathering and devel-oping prevention measures. Researchers constructed checklists for head nurses to provide a systematic ap-proach to prevent and control workplace violence in EDs. The data was gathered by interviews, question-naires and a literature review. Five checklists were developed. The checklists cover identification of hazards and risk assessment, measures and procedures, education and training, reporting of incidents and processing reports and safety culture. The checklists developed in this study provide a systematic and practical ap-proach to preventing and controlling workplace violence.