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

Abstract

<h3>Introduction</h3><p>Forensic psychiatric nursing staff are exposed to workplace violence, which harms well-being and may undermine safe care.</p><h3>Aim/Question</h3><p>To identify preventive factors for workplace violence on forensic psychiatric wards as reported in incident reports by nursing staff and nurse managers.</p><h3>Method</h3><p>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.</p><h3>Results</h3><p>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.</p><h3>Discussion</h3><p>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.</p>