Page 586 - Encyclopedia of Nursing Research

WORKPLACe VIOLenCe n 553

possibility that the risks of estrogen–proges- additional insights into sex versus gender
tin hormone therapy outweighed benefits differences.
among postmenopausal women (Rossouw W–Z
et al., 2002), the national Association of Ivy M. Alexander
nurse Practitioners in Women’s health was Angela Barron McBride
one of the first organizations to decipher the
results and call for individualizing care for
each woman (Wysocki, Alexander, Schnare,
Moore, & Freeman, 2003). Instead of identify- WorkplaCe ViolenCe
ing hormone therapy as too great a risk to be
used for any woman, nurse Practitioners in
Women’s health leaders called for thought- Workplace violence is defined as “vio-
ful interpretation of results and careful lent acts (including physical assaults and
evaluation of each woman’s risk factors, threats of assaults) directed toward persons
personal and family history, and clinical at work or on duty” (Centers for Disease
symptoms in addition to her individual pref- Control and Prevention/national Institute
erences for symptom management (Wysocki of Occupational Safety and health, 2002).
et al., 2003). Most workplace violence falls into one of four
nursing research and scholarly work categories:
related to the menopause transition has pro-
vided unique and important knowledge Type I (Criminal intent): results while a crimi-
that adds to the field of women’s health. It nal activity (e.g., robbery) is being commit-
also provides a framework for developing ted and the perpetrator has no legitimate
research that questions what is known and relationship to the workplace.
assures that the woman’s voice is clearly Type II (Customer/client): the perpetrator is
heard with regard to identifying what symp- a customer or client at the workplace (e.g.,
toms are occurring, what symptoms are health care patient) and becomes violent
bothersome, and how to best manage bother- while being served by the worker.
some symptoms. Type III (Worker-on-worker): employees or
The next challenges faced by nursing in past employees of the workplace are the
the many areas of women’s health research perpetrators in this case.
are to further expand the current under- Type IV (Personal relationship): the perpetra-
standings of health and illness in women tor in this case usually has a personal rela-
of varied ethnic, racial, and cultural back- tionship with an employee (e.g., domestic
grounds. It will be important to continue violence in the workplace).
to explore women’s responses to health, ill-
ness, and their environments and women’s nonfatal assaults are much more com-
preferences for varied approaches to maxi- mon than fatal assaults, especially in health
mizing health and managing disease. nurse care. however, current surveillance systems
researchers must be careful to not wholly capture fatal assaults better than nonfatal
reject “biology as destiny,” so that women’s assaults because of widespread underreport-
health research will not inadvertently min- ing and difficulties obtaining data on less
imize the physiologic pathways involved in visible forms of workplace violence (Barling,
responses to stressful psychosocial condi- Dupré, & Kelloway, 2009). According to the
tions. Future research must, therefore, be Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), assaults and
concerned with women’s experiences that violent acts were the second leading cause of
exist within the interface between the behav- occupational injury or death among all work-
ioral and the biomedical sciences to provide ers, and is the leading cause among women