Workplace Violence Risk in the Home Health Work Place

描述：工作场所暴力被认为是医疗保健部门的一项重大职业危害，但人们对家庭医疗保健工作场所的问题严重程度和有效预防策略知之甚少。家庭医护人员与医院环境中的同行一样，面临着与工作场所暴力有关的许多危险，但他们面临着与其工作组织方式的性质有关的额外风险。他们的工作往往是高度不可预测的，他们对实际工作环境的控制很少或根本没有控制。这一探索性研究项目的总体目标是收集试点数据，为研究设计、抽样策略和家庭卫生工作场所工作场所暴力测量提供信息。试点项目将针对风险因素、威胁和攻击以及当前的暴力预防战略制定措施。该项目还将制定措施，评估目前的家庭保健暴力预防战略及其与OSHA的家庭保健暴力预防指南的一致性。这一试点项目将为以下具体目标的家庭保健工作场所暴力大规模调查提供概念和方法蓝图：1)制定家庭保健工作场所工作场所暴力潜在风险因素的有效和可靠的衡量标准；2)确定家庭健康工作场所相关因变量、威胁和攻击的经验抽样参数；3)描述马里兰州家庭保健工作场所样本中威胁和攻击的频率和严重程度；以及4)制定措施以评估当前家庭保健工作场所的暴力预防战略及其与OSHA全面暴力预防计划指南的一致性。

DESCRIPTION: Workplace violence is recognized as a significant occupational hazard in the healthcare sector, however little is known about the magnitude of the problem and effective prevention strategies in the home health care workplace. Home healthcare workers are exposed to many of the same hazards associated with workplace violence as their counterparts in the hospital environment, but they face additional risk related to the nature of the way their work is organized. Their work is often highly unpredictable and they have little or no control of the physical work environment. The overall objective of this exploratory research project is to collect pilot data to inform study design, sampling strategy, and measurement of workplace violence in the home health work place. The pilot project will develop measures for risk factors, threats and assaults and current violence prevention strategies. This project will also develop measures to assess current violence prevention strategies in home health and their coherence with OSHA's violence prevention guidance for home healthcare. This pilot project will provide a conceptual and methodological blueprint for a large-scale investigation of workplace violence in home health care vial the following specific aims: 1) develop valid and reliable measures of potential risk factors for workplace violence in the home health workplaces, 2) ascertain empirical sampling parameters of the relevant dependent variables, threats and assaults, in home health, 3) describe the frequency and severity of threats and assault in a sample of Maryland home health work places, and 4) develop measure to assess current violence prevention strategies in home health and their coherence to OSHA guidelines for a comprehensive violence prevention program.