Risk Assessment of Workplace Violence Against Nurses: How Data Collection Methods Influence Results—A Swedish and Italian Cross-Sectional Study.

Background/Objectives: Workplace violence (WV) against healthcare workers (HCWs) is a major hazard all over the world. Prevention requires a reliable risk assessment. The rate of HCWs reporting a violent event varies considerably across multi-year retrospective studies compared to periodic surveys....

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Publicado en:Nursing Reports Vol. 16; no. 1; pp. 7 - 31
Autores principales: Magnavita, Nicola, Olsson-Tall, Maivor, Franzoni, Sergio, Isolani, Lucia
Formato: research tables/charts Journal Article
Publicado: MDPI Jan2026
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Risk Assessment of Workplace Violence Against Nurses: How Data Collection Methods Influence Results—A Swedish and Italian Cross-Sectional Study.
      aug:
        au:
          Magnavita, Nicola
          Olsson-Tall, Maivor
          Franzoni, Sergio
          Isolani, Lucia
        affil: Department of Safety and Bioethics, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Largo Francesco Vito 1, 00168 Roma, Italy
      sug:
        subj:
          Nurses Psychosocial Factors
          Nurses Psychosocial Factors
          Workplace Violence
          Risk Assessment
          Human
          Male
          Female
          Adult
          Middle Age
          Italy
          Sweden
          Cross Sectional Studies
          Nonexperimental Studies
          Comparative Studies
          Questionnaires
          Chi Square Test
          Fisher's Exact Test
          Analysis of Variance
          Post Hoc Analysis
          Pearson's Correlation Coefficient
          Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient
          Multiple Logistic Regression
          Multiple Linear Regression
          Descriptive Statistics
          Data Analysis Software
          Odds Ratio
          Confidence Intervals
          Age Factors
          Prevalence
          Checklists
          Sex Factors
          Assault and Battery
          Professional Competence
          Stress, Occupational
          Work Capacity Evaluation
          Adult: 19-44 years
          Middle Aged: 45-64 years
          Male
          Female
      ab: Background/Objectives: Workplace violence (WV) against healthcare workers (HCWs) is a major hazard all over the world. Prevention requires a reliable risk assessment. The rate of HCWs reporting a violent event varies considerably across multi-year retrospective studies compared to periodic surveys. We conducted a rapid observational study to demonstrate that data collection methods are more important than socio-cultural and healthcare organizational differences in determining the frequency of reported violence. Methods: In June 2025, in a cross-sectional observational comparison, we examined a total of 236 nurses divided into three groups: the first two were recruited online from Brescia (Italy) and Trollhättan (Sweden), while the third group was composed of Latium (Italy) nurses participating in a sleep health promotion program who answered the same questions on WV online. All the workers reported the frequency of violent incidents experienced in the previous 12 months using the Violent Incident Form (VIF), occupational stress using the Effort/Reward Imbalance questionnaire (ERI), and work ability via the Work Ability Score (WAS). Results: In the three samples, WV was correlated positively with stress and inversely with work ability (p < 0.01), while no significant difference was found between Italian and Swedish nurses in relation to the spot surveys. The nurses questioned directly about WV were significantly younger and reported significantly higher rates of physical aggression (28% vs. 5%, p < 0.001) and all forms of violence (73% vs. 20%, p < 0.001) than those questioned indirectly during the census of all the HCWs. In a multivariate linear regression model, the WV experienced and poor work ability were highly significant predictors of work-related stress (p < 0.001). Nurses who had experienced WV in the previous year had an increased odds ratio (OR = 8.94; Confidence Interval 95% = 4.43; 18.01) of reporting a state of distress. Conclusions: Experience has shown that specific questioning about violence—the commonest method used—encourages respondents to report violent events and may induce overreporting. This method also tends to involve younger workers who are more exposed to WV. On the other hand, prospective studies based on official reports may be influenced by underreporting. Monitoring WV during health promotion interventions included in occupational health surveillance could minimize both phenomena. Systematic studies and meta-analyses which rely mainly on "ad hoc" studies may be biased.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype:
        research
        tables/charts
        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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