Support Our Staff--a unique program to help deal with patient assault.

Purpose: The program "Support Our Staff" was developed to provide assaulted staff with the most current information and coping strategies.

Conclusions: Participants reported being helped by the program and felt better prepared to cope with future assaults. However, victims felt blamed for the disruption caused by the assault and resented the lack of support from management.

Concentric Interactive Group Model: a unique experience for patients and staff.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to describe the Concentric Interactive Group Model, a unique psychotherapeutic group therapy model, for the treatment of patients with difficulties related to aggression. In the first of three phases of the group, the patient discusses his/her aggression while staff observe; in the second phase, the staff discuss what occurred in the first phase while patients observe; and in the third and last phase, patients and staff discuss, clarify, and reinforce what was learned in the previous phases.

Conclusions: The uniqueness of the model is in the opportunity it offers the patient to learn to manage aggression through both dialogue and observation.

Multiple perspectives on assault: the 360-degree interview.

Workplace violence is common in health care settings. The authors review various models of this violence that have developed over time. From a linear model, understanding progressed to an interactional and then to a contextual model of assault that examines interactions of the aggressor, victim, and the environment.

Violence against psychiatric nurses: sensitive research as science and intervention.

Psychiatric nurses are frequent victims of workplace violence, much of which is perpetrated by patients. In a review of literature on prevalence, perpetrators, and impact of violence on psychiatric nurses, we note that workplace violence is a virtually normative experience for the nurse, rather than a rare occurrence. Verbal violence and sexual harassment, like physical violence, are common experiences; in contrast to physical violence, these are often initiated by co-workers.

Patient assault support group: achieving educational objectives.

As violence increases in society at large, violence is also increasing in hospitals and other health care facilities. Assault is one of the most serious occupational hazards reported in both public and private hospitals and their outpatient clinics. Despite prevention and intervention measures, experts predict that assault in hospitals will continue to be a serious problem.

A community meeting protocol for assault prevention.

Assaultive behavior by patients is a serious problem throughout healthcare facilities. Currently, wide variability exists in the approaches used to deal with assaultive behavior. The immediate objective of this study was to perform a consensus validation of the community meeting as a prevention and intervention measure for assault.