Short video intervention for violence prevention for emergency room staff

Status:

ongoing

Aims:

The aim of the study is to develop and evaluate a low-threshold brief intervention for the prevention of violence in emergency departments. The brief intervention is designed to convey fundamental information on the subject and is therefore particularly suitable for the induction of new staff, as well as for refreshing the knowledge of all staff members. The plan is to run a training session lasting approximately 45 minutes with up to 10 participants (medical and nursing staff in an emergency department), covering the following topics: behavioural prevention (causes and risk factors of/for violence; early warning signs; de-escalation techniques) and structural prevention (local circumstances and procedures, e.g. safe havens, emergency plan, telephone numbers, reporting, aftercare). The intervention is primarily aimed at increasing self-efficacy in dealing with violence.

A further aim of the brief intervention is to convey the perspective that violent behaviour is often facilitated by external and situational factors (such as noise) and that staff can actively contribute to preventing violence through de-escalating communication and behaviour. In addition, the potential effects of the intervention on the number of violent incidents and the subjective assessment of the level of risk in the local situation are being assessed.

Activities/Methods:

This is a randomised controlled trial being conducted on a multicentre basis at three sites, each within an emergency department. Participants (medical and nursing staff in an emergency department) are randomised to either the intervention group (IG) or the waiting control group (KG). Data collection takes place in both groups at three time points:

• t0: baseline assessment prior to participation in the brief intervention,
• t1: immediately after the IG’s participation in the brief intervention and
• t2: three months after the IG’s participation in the brief intervention.

Following the t2 assessment, the waiting list control group will also take part in the brief intervention. The following assessment tools will be used: Confidence in Coping with Patient Aggression Instrument, CCPAI (Nau et al., 2009, 2011), Management of Aggression and Violence Attitude Scale, MAVAS, (Duxbury et al., 2008; Hahn et al., 2006), Survey of Violence Experienced by Staff, SOVES-G-R, (Hahn et al., 2011), Risk Assessment (inhouse development).

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