Premium
Staff attitudes towards aggression in health care: a review of the literature
Author(s) -
JANSEN G. J.,
DASSEN T. W. N.,
GROOT JEBBINK G.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.69
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1365-2850
pISSN - 1351-0126
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2850.2004.00772.x
Subject(s) - aggression , cognition , psychology , health care , theory of reasoned action , human factors and ergonomics , poison control , occupational safety and health , applied psychology , medicine , clinical psychology , social psychology , psychiatry , medical emergency , pathology , economics , economic growth
The aim of this literature review was to explore the attitudes of health care workers towards inpatient aggression and to analyse the extent to which attitudes, as defined from a theoretical point of view, were addressed in the selected studies. Databases from 1980 up to the present were searched, and a content analysis was done on the items of the selected studies. The concepts ‘cognition’ and ‘attitude’ from the framework of ‘The Theory of Reasoned Action’ served as categories. The self‐report questionnaire was the most common instrument used and three instruments specifically designed to measure attitudes were found. These instruments lacked profound validity testing. From a total of 74 items, two thirds focussed on cognitions and only a quarter really addressed attitudes towards aggression. Research was particularly concerned with the cognitions that nurses had about aggression, and attitudes were studied only to a limited extent. Researchers used different instruments, which makes it difficult to compare results across settings.