Nursing Practitioners: Consideration of

Ethical Aspects
Dec 10th, 2022
NURSING

Workplace violence is a sensitive topic crucial to be openly discussed, and I respect

your courage to share your experience with facing aggression at your job. The abuse is
illegal and must not exist in a healthcare facility’s environment; however, the cases
frequently appear and develop legal and ethical tensions. You correctly identified that
“workplace violence is an aggression when staff is intimidated or attacked in the
circumstances related to their work, involving an explicit or implicit challenge to their
safety, well-being or health.” Indeed, the threat to the healthcare providers’ security
can occur due to their colleagues’ or patients’ actions; thus, every employee must be
protected legally. The current challenge in developing and establishing policies is that
violent acts of colleagues and clients are lawfully distinct and require different
investigations (Gooch, 2018). Patients are more protected by law and have more
defense options in a court as they can relate to ethical considerations such as
autonomy and non-maleficence.
Your experience of working in a psychiatric hospital is a significant foundation to
explore an ethical aspect of workplace violence. As healthcare providers, the
employees must act within beneficence and justice for the patients; however, the
aggression towards them might break the rules. Indeed, the cases where self-
protection becomes a priority, a moral aspect of taking care of the deviant client might
be disregarded (Dermenchyan, 2018). It is a profound practice for your facility to have
security guards and techniques to maintain the patients’ calm because it helps you
avoid aggression ethically. You also provided valuable insight into the violence’s
consequences for the healthcare workers by mentioning how psychological and
emotional outcomes impact practitioners’ capabilities. Today, it is critical to increase
healthcare providers’ legal and ethical safety measures because the COVID-19
pandemic became additional massive stress for most organizations, and the conflicts’
incidence increased.
Nursing practitioners must provide patients with safe healthcare services and act with
consideration of ethical aspects such as beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.
These conditions are challenging to maintain when the workers operate in an insecure
or violent environment; thus, the workplace policies must primarily address the
employees’ protection (Vento et al., 2020). I agree with your statement that
practitioners’ performance impacts the quality of care, and their safety must be
prioritized rather than the patients’. You also mentioned that “when nurse staffing is not
appropriate medical errors and emotional fatigue may arise.” Furthermore, the policies
must provide sufficient legal protection for employees in workplace violence cases
involving their colleagues, executives, or patients. You made a valuable conclusion that
the law must develop and support the appropriate responses to different situations.
Moreover, if workplace violence occurs in a facility and disrupts its staff’s performance,
the quality of their services lowers and creates a threat for the patients. Such
consequences are ethically incorrect because they are against the client’s beneficence
and might result in harmful patient outcomes (Pien et al., 2019). You correctly
mentioned that a facility’s schedule, staffing, and other operations must be developed
with consideration of “acuity of patients to assist in the prevention of medical errors
and emotional fatigue.” The strategy is effective for all types of healthcare
organizations to help them avoid ethical and legal conflicts and decrease the risks of
workplace violence. Lastly, each practitioner must be informed about the resources,
communities, and policymakers to reach in the cases of doubtful situations. Having a
lawyer who works with a facility and consults about workplace violence is beneficial for
all employees and patient outcomes.
References
Dermenchyan, A. (2018). Addressing workplace violence. Critical Care Nurse, 38(2), 81-
82. Web.
Gooch, P. (2018). Hospital workplace violence prevention in California: New regulations.
Workplace Health & Safety, 66(3), 115-119. Web.
Pien, L. C., Cheng, Y., & Cheng, W. J. (2019). Psychosocial safety climate, workplace
violence and self‐rated health: A multi‐level study among hospital nurses. Journal Of
Nursing Management, 27(3), 584-591. Web.
Vento, S., Cainelli, F., & Vallone, A. (2020). Violence against healthcare workers: A
worldwide phenomenon with serious consequences. Frontiers In Public Health, 8, 541.
Web.