Violence Management in a Nigerian Psychiatric Facility: Psychiatric–Mental Health Nurses' Current Practices and Their Effectiveness

Abstract

Patient violence in mental health care settings is daunting and stressful, as well as increasingly burdensome for professionals in low/middle income countries, specifically Africa. Patient violence has contributed to increased work hazards for health care professionals and may lead to patients being sedated or restrained, potentially resulting in injury to either the patient or provider. The current study assessed Nigerian psychiatric-mental health nurses' current practices of violence management in a hospital in Southwest Nigeria. A qualitative approach, specifically focus group discussion, was used. Results of the study show that patients and providers are prone to maltreatment. Professionals desire involvement of armed military officials to combat acts of violence by psychiatric patients who take advantage of nurses' gender, inexperience, or being lonely on duty, as well as the time of day, to attack nurses. Professionals have reportedly died in the process of violence management. Intervention studies on violence management in African mental health care settings are a priority for future research. [Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, 56(11), 37-45.].

A systematic review and thematic synthesis of inpatient nursing staff experiences of working with high‐risk patient behaviours

“…Staff believed managing assaults should not be part of their role and that different professionals such as security should manage them (Oyelade & Ayandiran, 2018). This led staff to question their professional identity:…”

“…Staff believed that physically large patients could commit more serious assaults and required management from physically strong nursing staff (Oyelade & Ayandiran, 2018). Some studies reported that female staff were at a greater risk of aggression from male patients (Camuccio et al, 2012;Zuzelo et al, 2012), while in Wright et al (2014), staff reported that female staff had a 'calming influence'.…”

“…Gender was the staff characteristic most frequently reported as being important to consider when evaluating risk. Patients also targeted particularly vulnerable staff or the same nurse they have attacked before (Oyelade & Ayandiran, 2018).…”

“…Stress and burnout were reported for all risk behaviours, and most commonly for aggression. This resulted in a range of negative physical and psychological symptoms, some resembling post-traumatic stress disorder (Dean et al, 2021;Rytterstrom et al, 2020), which resulted in staff doubting their competencies (Hiebert et al, 2022), no longer caring about their role (Zuzelo et al, 2012), considering leaving the profession (Kindy et al, 2005;Oyelade & Ayandiran, 2018;Yosep et al, 2019), taking medication to manage their work stress (Alhamidi & Alyousef, 2022), absenteeism and excessive alcohol use (Bimenyimana et al, 2009). Participants in Yang et al (2016) indicated that psychological trauma from assaults was more impactful than the physical injuries.…”

Misconceptions Regarding COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy, an Obstacle in the Light of Pandemic in Rural Community Lahore, Pakistan

“…Health care profession has even more severe consequences from workplace violence which appears as a major issue globally important in terms of violence against nurses and other health professionals at their work place. This violence may include verbal abuse from patients and their relative, physical violence like hitting and beating, and sexual harassment etcetera (Oyelade & Ayandiran, 2018).The verbal violence has the highest occurrence of all work place violence. Moreover, Nurses are exposed to work place violence more than any other health care discipline because they remain in contact with patients and their families for all the times (Alameddine et al, 2015).…”