Education and healthcare providers should prepare students to manage negative verbal exchanges during nursing education, and policies and support networks relating to managing verbal abuse in clinical practice should be available to nursing students.

No abstract

Violence and aggression against nursing staff have been the subject of an ongoing campaign. However, incidents of violence continue to be under-reported. This article discusses factors leading to under-reporting of incidents and focuses on how nursing staffs' attitudes and responses to violence may contribute to the likelihood of reporting incidents. Change management techniques are proposed to address the under-reporting of incidents and to improve the work environment.

This article examines factors that contribute to nurses failing to report incidents of violence and aggression in the clinical area and it develops the information published in a previous article (Ferns and Chojnacka 2005). Broader social factors are considered, including gender, violence experienced by women, the status of the nursing profession and bureaucratic structures that contribute to under-reporting. The life experiences of individual nursing staff play a significant role in how they react to violence in the clinical area. Strategies to minimise violence against nurses should consider the social, political and personal issues that limit the reporting of violent incidents. Only by reporting such incidents can the extent of violence towards nurses be determined and minimised.

Failure to document experiences of verbal abuse formally was prevalent and reporting practices were variable. Both higher education institutions and healthcare providers should consider establishing process for formal reporting and documenting of incidents of verbal abuse during nurse education, and students should have access to formal support services.