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Browsing by Subject "workplace violence"

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    Developing a Construct-Valid Measure of Workplace Aggression
    (2019-09) Shewach, Oren
    Conceptualizations of workplace aggression predominantly converge to suggest that intent to harm others is a necessary feature of aggression (Hershcovis et al., 2007; Jex & Bayne, 2017; Neuman & Baron, 2005). However, inspection of workplace aggression scales suggests that many items do not contain face-validity with respect to inclusion of intent to harm. In a series of four studies, this dissertation examines the effect of inclusion of intent to harm on workplace aggression’s psychometric properties, with the ultimate goal to develop a construct-valid measure of aggression. In addition to the focus on intent to harm, this research evaluates the feature of response perspective (i.e., experienced versus enacted aggression) within aggression’s measurement, as well as aggression’s nomological network and factor structure. First, a general sample of working adults is surveyed to judge the degree to which existing workplace aggression scales contain the feature of intent to harm. It is found that existing workplace aggression scales primarily do not contain sufficient levels of intent to harm, indicating a disconnect between conceptual definition and operational measurement of aggression. Second, results from another working sample suggest that inclusion of intent to harm in aggression scales has substantial implications for aggression’s occurrence rate as well as its factor structure. Specifically, prior research that does not assess intent to harm overestimates the frequency of aggression. Third, it is found that workplace aggression’s external correlations are also overestimated when failing to include intent to harm in measures of aggression. It was also found that aggression without intent is highly correlated with a related construct, counterproductive work behavior (CWB), whereas aggression measured with intent is empirically distinguished from CWB. Using data from the second and third studies, a construct-valid workplace aggression scale is devised, coined the Intentional Workplace Aggression Scale (IWAS). The IWAS displayed stronger relationships with affective constructs such as trait anger and emotional stability than the situational variables of job satisfaction and organizational justice perceptions. Additionally, workplace aggression consistently displayed three lower-order facets: verbal aggression, physical aggression, and social undermining. The fourth study represented a cross-validation effort for IWAS findings and was undertaken in a sample of Korean firefighters. Though to a smaller magnitude than in the previous study, findings surrounding the influence of intent to harm on aggression’s occurrence rate and nomological network were replicated. This study also showed moderate support for the factor structure of the IWAS. Finally, findings across multiple studies indicate that among the same individuals, workplace aggression from the victim perspective and the aggressor perspective are moderately to strongly related.
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    Protecting the Protectors: Violence-Related Injuries to Hospital Security Personnel and the Use of Conducted Electrical Weapons
    (2017-04) Gramling, Joshua
    Healthcare workers suffer high rates of violence-related injuries compared to other industries, with wide variances in risk dependent upon location and role. Hospital security guards, demonstrated to have high risk levels, are tasked with protecting the safety of healthcare personnel, visitors, and patients, and are called on to help control violent situations, but little is known about their protective and risk factors for violence-related injuries. Two separate and complementary investigations were undertaken to learn more about the risk and protective factors and to find whether one intervention, carriage of conducted electrical weapons, decreases the rates of violence-related injuries or injury severity. The first study was a mixed-methods design investigating the violence-related injuries and other violent events experienced by hospital security workers over the course of 1 year at an urban level 1 trauma center. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed on three existing data sources: the security officer narratives, occupational injury reports, and patient health records. There were 19 reported injuries over the course of a year, with an additional 300 violent incidents in 7 months. Most of the violent incidents involving security officers occurred at night, with most of the officer injuries taking place in the psychiatric departments. Qualitative analyses found that hospital policies may increase risk for violence. The second study was a retrospective cohort analysis of all security and ED nursing staff violence-related injuries at the same institution for the time period 4 years prior and 7 years after security workers were armed with conducted electrical weapons. A violence-related injury rate was calculated as all violence-related injuries incurred by each employee for the numerator and the productive hours worked by each individual during the study period of each model for the denominator. The hospital employed 98 security officers and 468 nursing staff over the 11 years of study. Security officers’ injury rate was 13 times higher than nursing staff. The risk ratio was 1.0 (95% CI 0.7-1.4) between the 2 examination periods for security officers, with similar results for nurses. However, among security workers the severity of injuries may have decreased in the post-implementation period.