Response to letter to the editor, "measurement of workplace violence reporting.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Ager J ; Arnetz JE ; Essenmacher L ; Hamblin L ; Luborsky M ; Russell J ; Upfal MJ
• Description:
  We are grateful for the thoughtful comments on our recent article, "Underreporting of Workplace Violence: Comparison of Self-Report and Actual Documentation of Hospital Incidents." (Arnetz, Hamblin, Ager, et al., 2015). The writer raises issues that are well worthy of discussion. However, on a number of points, there has been some misunderstanding that we hope this response will clarify. Areas of misunderstanding were: 1) conclusion; 2) unclear definitions of violence; 3) low reliability for the participants' determination of whether they were a target of workplace violence; 4) another possible explanation is faulty recall due to the lengthy recall period of 1 year; 5) the estimate of 88% is likely exaggerated; 6) it is probably unreasonable to conclude a failure-to-report problem exists when reporting is not mandated. This explanation would also be expected to inflate the failure-to-report percentage; and 7) . . . the value of the electronic reporting system is low among hospital employees, particularly nurses. The purpose of our article was to increase understanding of underreporting by investigating differences between self-report and actual documentation practices, and exploring the characteristics and reporting patterns of health care workers who underreport. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to accomplish these aims by linking documentation behavior and self-report to individuals via de-identified ID numbers. Hospital employees in this study did drastically underreport workplace violence, both electronically and by other, less formal means. Our article identified certain worker characteristics associated with both electronic and informal reporting of violent incidents. It is our hope that knowledge of this phenomenon will help occupational health nurses and health care organizations improve incident reporting, as such data are the first step toward preventing workplace violence. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Database Health Personnel Occupational Health Safety Surveys And Questionnaires Violence Workplace
• Keywords:
  Abuse Databases Health Care Personnel Health Care Workers Humans Medical Personnel Nurses Nursing Questionnaires Recording Systems Recordkeeping Surveillance Workplace Violence

  More +
• ISSN:
  2165-0799
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Michigan ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  46-47
• Volume:
  64
• Issue:
  2
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20048568
• Citation:
  Workplace Health Saf 2016 Feb; 64(2):46-47
• Contact Point Address:
  Judith E. Arnetz, PhD, MPH, PT, Department of Family Medicine, College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University, 788 Service Rd., B103 Clinical Center, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
• Email:
  judy.arnetz@hc.msu.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2016
• NORA Priority Area:
  Healthcare and Social Assistance
• Performing Organization:
  Wayne State University - Detroit, Michigan
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20110901
• Source Full Name:
  Workplace Health & Safety
• End Date:
  20150831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:4772ac90b892318325a38b7d5f8843170bde71b8493e8ffb879a2560cc21e3fbf7422b030946992cdd11cd3c04b02adeefd0c075a695260f6a40363f43646b51
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/203291/cdc_203291_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 387.21 KB ]