Workplace Violence Training for Nurses

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Research has shown that nurses are at very high risk of being victims of workplace violence. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) issued a Position Paper in 1999 emphasizing the inclusion of violence -related content as essential content in nursing curricula yet training remains incidental. The American Nurses Association (ANA), the International Council of Nurses (ICN) and the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) as well as health care labor unions hav e called for increased intervention effectiveness research. Workplace Violence Training for Nurses is an intensive web-based training to help registered nurses understand, assess, prevent, and respond to violence in the workplace. The self-paced training w ill make extensive use of video to share expert opinions, victims' experiences, provide video case studies, and behavior modeling. Pre- and post-tests for each training module will help track learning. Continuing education credits will be awarded to progra m graduates. An optional train-the-trainers module will be available for nurses who want to train others. A trainers toolkit will support the training efforts of those nurses who have completed the Trainer's module to help them conduct in-service workshops on workplace violence. Drawing from video elements of the web-based core curriculum, the toolkit will consist of a short introductory DVD providing an overview of hospital based workplace violence and featuring interviews with experts in, and nurse victim s of, workplace violence. A second DVD will contain a selection of video case studies and examples from the website for viewing and discussion. Also included will be a workshop leader's guide and learning assessment tools. Nurses that graduate from these w orkshops will be invited to complete the full web-based training for continuing education credits. In Phase I, the producers will develop the curriculum and produce a functional prototype of one module of the web training, which will then be evaluated usin g focus groups representative of the target audiences. Evaluators will use well-documented qualitative techniques to analyze focus group data. This project will advance the knowledge and training of hospital-based nurses about workplace violence. Additiona lly, it will provide the opportunity to gather more data on the prevalence of hospital workplace violence and its antecedents. Finally, it has the potential for longitudinal surveys of nurses who have taken the training to determine its long-term effective ness. 7. Project Narrative - Relevance to Public Health Research indicates that nurses are at very high risk of being victims of workplace violence. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) issued a Position Paper in 1999 emphasizing the in clusion of violence-related content as essential content in nursing curricula yet training remains incidental. The American Nurses Association (ANA), the International Council of Nurses (ICN) and the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) as well as health ca re labor unions have called for increased intervention effectiveness research. This project will advance the knowledge and training of hospital-based nurses about workplace violence. Additionally, it will provide the opportunity to gather more data on the prevalence of hospital-based workplace violence and its antecedents. Finally, it has the potential for longitudinal surveys of nurses who have taken the training to determine its long-term effectiveness.