Workplace Violence Prevention in Forensic Psychiatric Nursing: A Five‐Year Qualitative Content Analysis of Incident Reports From a Finnish Forensic Psychiatric Hospital

Introduction

Forensic psychiatric nursing staff are exposed to workplace violence, which harms well-being and may undermine safe care.

Aim/Question

To identify preventive factors for workplace violence on forensic psychiatric wards as reported in incident reports by nursing staff and nurse managers.

Method

Qualitative inductive content analysis of workplace violence incident reports over 5 years at one Finnish forensic psychiatric hospital, focusing on prevention-oriented free-text fields. Categories were descriptively quantified as the number (%) of reports containing each category.

Results

Incident reports portrayed workplace violence prevention as a layered entity covering clinical stabilisation, staffing and work organisation, anticipatory routines, therapeutic interaction and de-escalation, environmental and technological safety measures, restrictions and external-risk control, and information flow, debriefing and organisational learning.

Discussion

Clinical, organisational and environmental factors were intertwined in prevention. Incident report narratives and measures may provide a qualitative source for examining prevention-related practices and follow-up actions in forensic psychiatric care.