Violence breeds violence: burnout as a mediator between patient violence and nurse violence.

The present study examines whether patient-perpetrated violence triggers anger, hatred and other negative emotions that, under certain circumstances, might motivate nurses to behave violently with patients. In doing so, this study considers burnout as a mediator in the patient violence-nurse violence relationship. To test the causal paths, data were collected from 182 nurses working in two government-sector teaching hospitals of Pakistan's Punjab province.