A qualitative study on differences of nurses' cognition on workplace violence under different perspectives

Objective To understand the cognition of experiencers and witnesses on workplace violence (WPV) in nurses and to analyze the differences among them so as to provide a theoretical basis for formulating intervention. Methods From February to May 2018, totals of 26 nurses, experiencers and witnesses of WPV, at a hospital in Suzhou were selected as subjects by purposive sampling to carry out semi-structured interview with the method of descriptive qualitative study. Content analysis was used to the data. Results Under different perspectives, the differences of nurses' cognition on WPV included three aspects involving subject responsibility attribution, pre-recognition in advance and organizational support of WPV. Experiencers thought that patients had great responsibilities on violence, WPV was difficult to identify, lack of organizational support. Witnesses showed that nurses and patients matched each other in responsibilities, WPV could be identified in advance, the ways of organizational support needed diversification. Conclusions Under different perspectives, there are differences in nurses' cognition on WPV. Hospital managers should strengthen the building of security, and improve nurses' violence identification and coping capacity to reduce the incidence of hospital violent incidents. Key words: Nurses; Workplace violence; Doctor-patient conflicts; Cognition; Qualitative study