Safety Concerns for Nurses and Emergency Personnel in Hospital Emergency Departments in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

1. Introduction
Objective: The purpose of this study was to provide an unprecedented comprehensive examination of work-related safety within a sample of emergency departments in Saudi hospitals. Safety climate is an important human resource management topic because large numbers of victims are drawn to the emergency departments at both public and private hospitals in Saudi Arabia. Subsequently, the staff in these emergency departments are at risk of physical violence, serious verbal and legal consequences, chronic health issues, and psychological issues. Staff affected by violence and injury are usually off work and need short-term and long-term sick leave benefits, which means cost-effective issues would make this study beneficial. The overall aim of this work was to study these effects in emergency departments at public and private hospitals, from the personnel perspective, by comparing general perceived safety. The relationships and effects between trust and safety at work were also robustly tested.
Methods
The target population consisted of nursing and emergency non-nursing staff employed in six government healthcare hospitals that provide emergency services in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The head nurses and director of nursing of the selected hospitals granted approval to conduct the study in each hospital. Approval and ethical permission to conduct the study were granted by the Deanship of Research and the Research and Ethical Committee in the College of Nursing. Eligible participants were provided with information for the purpose of the study through a cover page attached to the self-administered questionnaire explaining the purpose of the study, the time required to complete the study, the voluntary basis of participation in the study, and the right to refuse to participate or withdraw without prejudice.
Conclusion
The findings of this study have implications for the development of policies and protocols for the prevention of workplace violence against nurses, guidance on what to expect and what the job of nursing entails, and how the organizational culture can be modified in such a way as to favorably develop and maintain nursing and retention within this area of nursing. Consequently, effective interventions to reduce violence and change the perceptions of emergency care nursing as acceptable behavior for this role, forming part of the response strategy to violence against nurses, should be considered.
The intention here is not to over-dramatize, but to draw attention to an issue that is far more complex than is currently recognized. Workplace violence and the deleterious effect that it has on the minds and bodies of emergency department staff must be appreciated by the wider society and taken up by researchers, managers, policy developers, and educational bodies so that further examination, imperative change, and informed practice in the assessment of current effective measures to address the consequences workplace violence has for the staff being subjected to it. The verbal, emotional, and physical violence directed against the staff in hospital emergency departments for both male and female nurses involved in the profession is both unacceptable and far removed from the workplace environment where practices need to be valued, expanded, and reinforced. Since the task of protecting the patients and staff in hospital emergency departments is so demanding, and as healthcare becomes increasingly complex, education at all levels of nursing—pre-registration, registration, and continuing professional development—is an essential foundation for the development of proactive, empathetic, compliant, role-aware, and decision-making effective practitioners.