Читать книгу PROtect Yourself! Empowering Tips & Techniques for Personal Safety: A Practical Violence Prevention Manual for Healthcare Workers - Rae Stonehouse - Страница 9

Before we look at the definitions it might be helpful to draw from the area of interpersonal communication known as “assertiveness.”

Behaviorally speaking, an individual who is assertive can establish close, interpersonal relationships; can protect themselves from being taken advantage of by others; can make decisions and free choices in life; can recognize and acquire more of his/her interpersonal needs; and can verbally and non-verbally express a wide range of feelings and thoughts, (both positive and negative).

This is to be accomplished without experiencing undue amounts of anxiety or guilt and without violating the rights and dignity of others in the process.

Abuse, assault and violence are terms used interchangeably in the literature to describe behaviors ranging from verbal abuse and emotional harm, to criminal activities such as common assault (which includes wounding, maiming, disfiguring, or endangering life).

We can consider three terms in helping to define the area of aggression and violence.

These are:

•Assertion

•Aggression

•Violence

1.Assertion is a generic term for all behaviour, as described above, without hostile intent, which is designed to gratify a need.

(Assertion (Latin asserera; claim, affirm) To state positively, To affirm, To maintain insistently)

2.Aggression is a specific form of assertion that has hostile intent.

(Aggression (Latin aggressio; a going towards, attack)

3.Violence pertains to the use of physical force and is the exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse.

(Violence (Latin violentia; vehemence, ferocity)

The use of definitions vary between organizations, therefore the following definitions will be used to define the behavior that this manual is targeting.

(a)Workplace Violence is:

•a hostile or aggressive behavior resulting in physical or emotional injury to [Hospital] staff members or damage to [Hospital] property. The incident or act may be committed by a patient, resident, volunteer, visitor, physician or staff member and may involve but is not limited to name calling, swearing, threats, use of a weapon, sexual harassment, assault and/or battery, any of which may occur in the normal course of the regular duties and job responsibilities.

(b)Assault is:

•any action by another which creates a situation in which a person has reasonable cause to feel afraid for his or her safety, whether or not an injury (physical or psychological) occurs.

Comment: The two components of assault are the threat and the ability of the person to carry out the threat. Examples of assault are hits, grabs, shoves, kicks, pinches, sexual assaults, threats with an object such as a chair, cane or sharps container, or with a dangerous weapon such as a knife, gun or blunt instrument, any physical injury, and verbal hostility and abuse.

(a)Aggression is:

•the verbal or physical acting out of anger or hostile feelings. Aggressive behavior may be directed towards self, other people or objects and may include everything from: agitation, restlessness, threatened aggression, offensive gestures to destruction of environment, self-abuse and physical injury to others.