Inpatients-to-Caregivers Violence in Geriatric Settings

The psychological suffering of caregivers is a widely established fact. Indeed, the patients present numerous aggressive behaviors directed nursing staff, considering their diagnoses. This violence has effects on caregivers’ mental health. Numerous articles have studied this question; however, it is rare that French studies have combined qualitative and quantitative approaches to the problem. With the aim of examining the effect of these attacks, we set up the 2 following studies. The first one, a qualitative study, is based upon clinical interviews. The second one, a quantitative study, uses 4 validated tools (measuring anxiety with State–Trait Anxiety Inventory [STAI-Y], burnout with Maslach Burnout Inventory [MBI], Burnout Measure Short Version [BMS], and posttraumatic stress with Impact of Event Scale-Revised [IES-R]) and a questionnaire assessing the presence and frequency of the assaults. Sixty-four caregivers have participated in this research. From a qualitative point of view, the interviews bring to light the fact that caregivers suffering attacks try to manage them with active coping (explanations, requests for external help) but that as their frequency increases, they resort to flight or avoidance coping strategies. Our research shows that rather than the intensity of the attacks, it is their frequency that has a significant effect on the caregiver’s suffering. The more the attacks are frequent, the more the levels of burnout, anxiety-state and posttraumatic stress increase. These results show that the assaults of the residents, even when not considered as dangerous, can have a heavy impact on caregivers’ mental health.