Dealing with verbal abuse: evaluation of the efficacy of a workshop for student nurses.

Verbal abuse is a problem that can confront all health care professionals in their day to day practice. Studies into abuse of professionals have emphasised the stressful effects of non-physical violence and have shown that it is often the most inexperienced members of various professions who are in the 'front line' of such attacks. The group of staff particularly at risk are student nurses (HSC 1987). This paper presents an evaluative study of a workshop devised to help student nurses to deal with verbal abuse (Wondrak 1989). Psychiatric nursing students were studied from two intakes into a training course. A simulated situation of an interview with a verbally abusive patient was video taped and assessment was made by independent raters of each subjects ability to deal with the situation. 14 of the subjects then attended a verbal abuse workshop and when re-tested, their ability to deal with abuse was compared with those 15 student nurses who did not attend a workshop. The findings are encouraging, indicating that there is a significant change in the experimental group on a number of variables, related to both practical and emotional aspects of dealing with abuse. Thus the efficacy of the short workshop in improving ability to deal with verbal abuse was demonstrated.

An investigation into self, peer and tutor assessments of student psychiatric nurse's written work assignments.

As part of an 84-week experiential psychiatric nurse training course, a group (n = 19) of post registration student nurses (PRSNS) were involved in the process of writing four essays on aspects of psychiatric nursing during their first 16 weeks of school based study days. The marking criteria for each essay was determined in the classroom by the PRSNS together with their tutor, and the essays were subsequently written in the student's own time. Assessment and grading of each essay was carried out by the student, a peer, and a tutor, using the agreed marking criteria. Analysis of the independently awarded grades for all of the essays reveals that students consistently award themselves lower grades than either their peers or their tutors, with tutors awarding the highest grades in 3 of the 4 essays. Further analysis reveals that peers and tutors, and peers and students grades correlated significantly in 2 out of the 4 essays.

Dealing with verbal abuse.

In the recent report by the Health and Safety Commission (HSC 1987) into violence in the Health Service, the group of staff who were identified as being most at risk, were student nurses. The highest incidence of aggression reported was verbal abuse, and in a 12-month-period 4 out of 10 students who responded to the study had experienced such abuse. Student nurses are in a very vulnerable position and are likely to be the recipients of verbal attack, such as anger, hostility or abuse. This vulnerability may be due to their front line position, their lack of skill and experience, or more often the lack of any training in handling such situations.