The healthcare sector is facing the most serious issue of violence in the workplace. Healthcare staff frequently faces violent and aggressive behavior in their daily work routine. Incidences of actual violence and verbal and physical aggression are high for the staff working in accidents and emergencies.
Violence at the workplace surely affects negatively on individuals. It affects physical as well as psychological and emotional health and results in anxiety, depression and decreased motivation. Healthcare workers need more protection and stress management pieces of training against violence and aggression.
How to respond to violence and aggression?
For a healthcare professional it is important to consider the following points while facing aggression, violence, or threatening from patient or visitors:
- The most important thing is to manage personal safety because it is the number one priority. You can call for help and exit from the situation.
- To de-escalating the issue, it is essential to be a good listener. It will help you to understand the condition of the individual. Maybe the person is behaving aggressively due to some sort of fear, losing control of the situation, or have faced an unexpected shock. So, listen carefully helps you in communicating the process.
- In any panic situation, there is no need to fill the silence with words. Keep silence is a good strategy to implement.
- Showing empathy is also a good way to understand the situation of the patient/individual. By medication management, offering food and water, and avoiding excessive stimulation, you can take control of the situation.
- By relaying engagement and interest to the person and showing positive body language is also helpful in dealing with aggressive people. Always try to maintain eye contact and a nonthreatening body posture to keep the individual calm and relax.
- Acknowledging the anger of an individual/patient can also help to diffuse the situation. Don’t try to use reflective comments.
BASIS TRAINING PMVA COURSE:
PMVA training is a mandatory requirement for frontline healthcare staff that works in aggressive and violent settings. BASIS training has designed a PMVA course to meet the needs of healthcare staff and every section is arranged according to your work requirements.
BASIS TRAINING offers 3 packages for the PMVA training course. Package 1 is a PMVA refresher course of one day and it’s simply update training. Package 2 is a two days core course that includes core PMVA training and Package 3 is a full PMVA + conflict management training course of 3-4 days. These courses cover breakaway techniques, non-complaint training methods, focuses legislation, and many more.