The Harassment of Nurses: My 1st Employee Safety Article Published in 1995

OSHA says 80% of reported violence suffered by nurses comes from patients. The first workplace violence article I ever wrote dealt with the harassment of nurses. It was published over 30 years ago when I served as Director of Human Resources for a home health care agency.

Over the years I've written countless articles for many periodicals and organizations such as the Florida Bar’s newsletter The Checkoff, BLR, NBI, Lorman, Claims Magazine, the National Underwriter, and PLRB.

The very first one however was a continuing education unit (CEU) piece which was published by Nursing Spectrum Magazine – the predecessor to Nurse.com.

My objective then was as it remains today: To educate and shed light on unacceptable workplace behaviors, to provide an overview of the laws that exist to protect workers, and offer guidance as to what could and should be done to address it.

I am proud to say I was the first non-clinician to ever be published in that leading periodical. Over the years my article was updated and modified for different audiences such as the one that appears below:

Reprinted from: http://www.continuingeducation.com/Aspx/CEBundleObjective.aspx?TopicId=8325

I am NOT so proud to say that the abuse of nurses continues to be a concern more than three decades after my first article was published.

While patients are the source of most of the abuse, other individuals such as visitors and co-workers are also involved in the workplace-based violence against nursing professionals.

Unfortunately, the full scope of the problem is unknown as OSHA informs us many cases of workplace violence involving nurses go unreported.

For further information please read the following:

https://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3826.pdf