A Literature Review Over Risk Factors, Prevention, Interventions and Consequences of Worker on Worker Violence in the Healthcare Workplace

Abstract

Nurses have a long-rooted culture of eating their own in the form of incivility and lateral violence. This paper will utilize a literature review in order to offer evidence-based recommendations to prevent and intervene against worker on worker or lateral workplace violence, as well as, discuss the risk factors and consequences of workplace violence. The literature review used sixteen articles from two databases, Creighton Libraries and Google Scholarly. Inclusion criteria for articles included: prevalence data, risk factors for, prevention, intervention or recommendation strategies for, or consequences of lateral workplace violence in healthcare. The method utilized was a retrospective review of the literature, utilizing previously published literature within the set inclusion criteria listed above. Eleven of the sixteen articles used focused on interventions for reducing lateral violence in the workplace. Six articles found education to be the strongest intervention for preventing, recognizing, and treating workplace violence, such as incivility, lateral violence, and bullying (Armstrong, 2018) (Ceravolo et al., 2012) (Kile et al.,2019) (Mento et al., 2020) (Parker et al., 2016) (Vessey & Williams, 2020). Armstrong (2018) suggests the most successful education utilizes sessions over a period of time and a single educational session does not provide significant benefits. Other interventions included a healthy work environment and supportive leadership styles (Bambi et al., 2017).