FACTS

1. The health care and social service industries experience the highest rates of injuries caused by workplace violence and are 5 times as likely to suffer a workplace violence injury than workers overall. 
2. Violent workplace deaths among health care workers (HCWs) remain understudied in the extant literature despite the potential for serious long-term implications for staff and patient safety. 
3. Employers must understand the OSHA definition of violence at work and implement policies that protect employees from the “threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site”. 
4. In circumstances where employees are at risk from physical assault, employers should implement mechanisms that can quickly alert security personnel and emergency services to an act of violence.
5. The third leading cause of death for workers in the healthcare and professional services is due to workplace violence.
6. Employees with potential to commit workplace violence tend to exhibit behaviors such as acting out of character or exhibiting addictive habits.

STATS

• Workplace violence due to intentional injuries by other person in the private healthcare and social assistance industry accounted for 2 percent of the 900,380 total nonfatal occupational injuries or illness cases requiring days away from work in 2018.
• While 75% of nearly 25,000 workplace assaults occur annually in healthcare settings, only 30% of nurses and 26% of emergency department physicians have reported incidents of violence.1
• Healthcare workers accounted for 73 percent of all nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses due to violence in 2018.
• 80% of Emergency Medical Services personnel have been attacked by patients.
• Homicide is the second leading cause of workplace death for home healthcare workers.
• 78% of Emergency Department physicians and 100% of Emergency Department nurses have experienced violence from patients within the last year.
• The annual incidence of physical assault in a psychiatric setting is 70%.
• Among nursing homes with dementia units, 59% of nursing aides reported being assaulted by patients weekly and 16% daily.
• 46% of nurses reported some form of workplace violence during their five most recent shifts.