Effectiveness of Conducted Electrical Weapons to Prevent Violence-Related Injuries in the Hospital

Details

• Personal Author:
  Church, Timothy R. ; Gaugler JE ; Gramling JJ ; McGovern, Patricia M. ; Nachreiner, Nancy M.
• Description:
  Introduction: Health care workers suffer higher rates of violence-related injuries than workers in other industries, with hospital security officers and ED personnel at particularly high risk for injury. Arming hospital security workers with conducted electrical weapons, such as tasers, has been suggested as an intervention to decrease violence-related injuries in the hospital. Methods: A retrospective cohort of all security and ED nursing staff at an urban level 1 trauma center was identified from human resources data for the period 4 years before and 7 years after security workers were armed with conducted electrical weapons. A violence-related rate of injury was calculated as all violence-related injuries incurred by each employee for the numerator and the productive hours worked by each person during the study period as the denominator. Results: The hospital employed approximately 30 security staff and 200 nursing staff at the time, with a total of 98 security officers and 468 nursing staff members over the 11 years of study. During the total nursing study period, 98 security officers contributed 452,901 hours; 265 registered nurses from the emergency department contributed 1,535,044 hours; and 203 health care assistants contributed 624,805 hours. Security officers' violence-related rate of injury was 13 times higher than that of the nursing staff. The risk ratio was 1.0 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.7-1.4) between the 2 examination periods for security officers, with similar results for nurses. However, among security workers, the cost of the injuries decreased in the period after implementation. Conclusion: Carrying conducted electrical weapons by hospital security staff appears to have limited capacity to decrease overall rates of violence-related injury but may decrease the severity of violence-related injuries. The latter could decease costs to health care organizations as well as morbidity of injured staff. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Health Care Facilities Workforce And Services Health Personnel Occupational Health Safety Violence Workplace
• Keywords:
  Assaults Author Keywords: Workplace Violence CEWs Conducted Electrical Weapons Health Care Injuries Health Care Workers Hospital Safety Injury Prevention Intervention Effectiveness Medical Facilities Occupational Workplace Violence

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• ISSN:
  0099-1767
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Minnesota ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  249-257
• Volume:
  44
• Issue:
  3
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20064047
• Citation:
  J Emerg Nurs 2018 May; 44(3):249-257
• Contact Point Address:
  Joshua J. Gramling, PhD, RN, 2750 Vincent Ave N, Minneapolis, MN 55411
• Email:
  gram0066@umn.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2018
• Performing Organization:
  University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Emergency Nursing
• End Date:
  20250630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:822d9b50dea48ce86058eac1af7a80cef4536666e060bd2a8e8b321eef05184f43e67c970da4c30faabce0a0752755b898bae720e1f783a7ebfca5c427baaa85
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/222573/cdc_222573_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 328.37 KB ]