VIOLENCE IN HEALTHCARE – HOW TO ASSESS, PREVENT AND MINIMIZE

Introduction: Violence in work can be defined as any incident in which a person suffers physical, psychological or verbal violence, mobbing or discrimination in circumstances relating to their work. In healthcare, violence keep-on unrecognized and undervalued. It has serious consequences for workers and organizations. Objective: Determine strategies to assess, prevent and minimize violence in healthcare workers used in several countries like Portugal, United Kingdom, Spain and Brazil. Methods: Bibliographic search on websites, journals ant reports related to violence in healthcare, WHO and governmental entities. Results: An approach suggested in the literature is firstly look for hazards, evaluate who might be harmed and how, evaluate the risks, record the findings, review and revise the assessment. Several risk factors can be identified as: providing care to people who are ill, distressed, afraid or on medication; working alone, in physically isolated units or after normal working hours; working in units often crowded, busy, uncomfortable and lacking in essentials for the public; working under pressure created by increased workloads and staff shortages. Use of personal communication devices, intervention on the physical environment of the workplace, training in the prevention and management of violence/aggression, implementing control measures, development of policies with local authorities are some of the strategies stated by countries named above. Discussion: Healthcare workers seams to consider violence in their workplace as inevitable, unpredictable and therefore uncontrollable, but the risk of work-related violence is often foreseeable. Staff has the right to be safe and healthy at work.