Public Reactions in Online Newspapers to Workplace Violence Against Nurses

Abstract

Background Nurses frequently suffer from workplace violence, but the public is often not fully aware of the situation because many events are not widely reported. Methods This study is an attempt to describe public perceptions of and reactions to reports of incidents of violence against nurses in online newspapers. Articles about such violence in Vietnamese online newspapers published from January to December 2019 as well as readers’ comments on those articles were collected for thematic analysis. Results Nine assaults were reported in 152 articles, and 367 comments were left in the threads. The analysis found four themes: 1) proposing punishment, 2) showing sympathy, 3) being skeptical, and 4) taking gender into account. In particular, the audience called for stricter punishment of the assaulters and showed sympathy for the nurses. However, commenters’ prior experiences with poor nursing services sometimes made them skeptical about the motivations of the attackers. Additionally, commenters saw the violence as a conflict between a man (assaulter) and a woman (assaultee) rather than between a client and a professional nurse. Conclusions In general, the public showed support to nurses. Nurses should take advantage of this support to advocate improved policies and measures to protect themselves from violence at work.

Workplace Violence Against Nurses: Challenges and Solutions for Europe

“…Apart from training, the public has a central role in workplace violence as well: influencing public attitudes can significantly reduce incidences of violence ( Lian & Dong, 2021 ; Warshawski et al, 2021 ). The public is generally sympathetic toward nurses subject to violence ( Tung et al, 2021 ). Therefore, leveraging the consensus of the public by bringing awareness to the problem of workplace violence can be a leveraging tool for an advocacy organization to place the topic higher in the national agenda of priorities and to advance strategies aimed at ameliorating the public perception and reputation surrounding the nursing profession.…”

Comparing workplace violence among nurses and other professionals using online articles: A social network analysis

“…They deliver information about global events to readers immediately and provide continuous updates (Lee & Kim, 2017; Zhuravskaya et al, 2020). Regarding workplace violence, online articles have reported noteworthy violent incidents, prompting violence risk assessment in the aftermath (Hoyle et al, 2018; Kang et al, 2019; Tung et al, 2021). Since online article data are vast and unstructured, social network analysis can be utilized to examine it.…”

Judicial judgment and media sensation of violence against medical staff in China: A fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA)

“…By the end of 2020, the number of Chinese netizens reached one billion. Social media allow netizens to immediately share their reactions with reported stories [46]. Meanwhile, increased application of social media in medicine has even led to the development of new forms of aggression, that is, online violence against healthcare providers, such as hate speech, trolling, cyberbullying, and cyberstalking [47][48][49][50].…”

“…Tougher laws on violence against medical staff are desired worldwide [100,101]. Once violence behaviors against medical staff are seen as unacceptable and face severe punishment, potential perpetrators would reconsider the cost of their criminal activities [46].…”

“…Public attention to such violence takes the form of official reports, media stories, and national initiatives in the United States [12], the UK [102]; Kenya [103], Ethiopia [104]; Turkey [105], Iran [106], India [107], Indonesia [108], and Latin America [109], etc. The flourishing development of social media not only provides constant and endless streams of news and events [46], but also spread news stories of these events broadly and quickly [41,110]. Media worldwide tend to sacrifice clear and balanced news reporting to catch readers' and audiences' attention [41,111].…”