Workplace Violence Against Homecare Workers and Its Relationship with Workers Health Outcomes: A Cross-Sectional Study

Details

• Journal Article:
  BMC Public Health
• Personal Author:
  Hanson, Ginger C. ; Perrin, Nancy A. ; Moss, Helen ; Laharnar, Naima ; Glass, Nancy
• Description:
  Background
  
  Consumer-driven homecare models support aging and disabled individuals to live independently through the services of homecare workers. Although these models have benefits, including autonomy and control over services, little evidence exists about challenges homecare workers may face when providing services, including workplace violence and the negative outcomes associated with workplace violence. This study investigates the prevalence of workplace violence among homecare workers and examines the relationship between these experiences and homecare worker stress, burnout, depression, and sleep.
  
  Methods
  
  We recruited female homecare workers in Oregon, the first US state to implement a consumer driven homecare model, to complete an on-line or telephone survey with peer interviewers. The survey asked about demographics and included measures to assess workplace violence, fear, stress, burnout, depression and sleep problems.
  
  Results
  
  Homecare workers (n = 1,214) reported past-year incidents of verbal aggression (50.3% of respondents), workplace aggression (26.9%), workplace violence (23.6%), sexual harassment (25.7%), and sexual aggression (12.8%). Exposure was associated with greater stress (p < .001), depression (p < .001), sleep problems (p < .001), and burnout (p < .001). Confidence in addressing workplace aggression buffered homecare workers against negative work and health outcomes.
  
  Conclusions
  
  To ensure homecare worker safety and positive health outcomes in the provision of services, it is critical to develop and implement preventive safety training programs with policies and procedures that support homecare workers who experience harassment and violence.
  
  Electronic supplementary material
  
  The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-014-1340-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Burnout Health Personnel Homecare Occupational Health Safety Workplace
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Homecare; Workplace Aggression; Workplace Violence; Sexual Harassment; Burnout Workers; Work-environment; Humans; Women; Physiology; Physical-reactions; Psychological-stress; Psychology; Training; Education; Preventive-medicine; Exposure-levels; Risk-factors; Violence-prevention; Health-care-personnel; Health-care; Workers; Work-environment; Stress; Sleep-deprivation; Sleep-disorders; Demographic-characteristics; Safety-measures; Safety-education; Safety-practices; Safety-programs;
• Source:
  BMC Public Health. 15.
• Pubmed ID:
  25595487
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC4308913
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  R01 OH009080/OH/NIOSH CDC HHS/United States
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Maryland ; Oregon ; OSHA Region 10 ; OSHA Region 3
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  13 pdf pages
• Volume:
  15
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20046676
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2015
• Performing Organization:
  Johns Hopkins University
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:8953b8b48de34134a5715db6644dd9b679556d80ee217436288e8a5936889c35e90cf77e21e02ed5f7c554f551f353f9368c6c343d0f34063b9fc177c32557a5
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/32349/cdc_32349_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 625.19 KB ]