"This book is a must for all emergency departments and a valuable resource for anyone scheduled to work there. It covers the history and evolution of violence in emergency departments and offers excellent exhibits for quick reference..." --Doody's Violence in the emergency department (ED) is a critical, even life-threatening problem facing ED nurses and physicians daily. Emergency room personnel have repeatedly reported being threatened, harassed, and seriously injured by hostile patients, including psychiatrically ill patients, substance abusers, and criminals, as well as by patients' families and friends. During this nursing shortage, it is imperative that hospital administrators take the necessary measures to create a violence-free emergency room. This book educates health care professionals and hospital administrators about all aspects of ED violence. The author provides all the essential tools and strategies for preventing violence before it starts, and managing it if it occurs. In this book, Allen provides practical guidelines for assessing the potential risk of violence in the ED and implementing a violence defense strategy and program. Key topics discussed: How to assess the potential risk of violence in individual patients How to identify the types of patients that are most likely to be violent in the ED and why they are violent How to plan and implement a violence defense program by increasing security, charging penalties and fines, announcing hospital-wide alerts, and more How to improve communication strategies with both colleagues and violent patients in the ED How to increase awareness of the the significant problem of lateral violence among healthcare personnel Violence in the Emergency Department will not only help safeguard physicians and nurses from injury, it will serve as one more step toward healing the critical nursing shortage, increasing job satisfaction, and improving patient care.

Every year in the U.S., thousands of women and hundreds of men participate in sexual assault forensic examinations. Sameena Mulla reveals the realities of sexual assault response in the forensic age. She analyzes the ways in which nurses work to collect and preserve evidence while addressing the needs of sexual assault victims as patients.Mulla argues that blending the work of care and forensic investigation into a single intervention shapes how victims of violence understand their own suffering, recovery, and access to justice-in short, what it means to be a "victim".

Every clinician today needs a basic understanding of what causes violent behavior. The second edition of Neurobiology of Violence synthesizes current research on the origins of violence and reveals its implications for managing aggressive patients and minimizing risk. Author Jan Volavka, currently Chief of Clinical Research at the Nathan S. Kline Institute, spent time in a Nazi prison as a child and has devoted much of his career to studying violence in humans. In Neurobiology of Violence, Second Edition, he brought together research and clinical data from many diverse disciplines in a single-authored volume with a unified voice that is clearly written and interesting to read. Neurobiology of Violence, Second Edition, will give you a firm grounding in a complex subject that will help you diagnose, manage, and predict violent behavior. In the first part of the book you'll examine the basic science of the origins of violence in humans, such as Factors in animal aggression that have parallels in human aggression, including the relationship between serotonin and aggression The genetic and environmental factors that interplay from conception to adulthood to result in violence. In the latter part, you'll develop new insights and strategies for working with violent patients in discussions of the latest clinical science, including Major mental disorders and violent behaviors, including behaviors expressed in the community and those in psychiatric hospitals Alcohol and various drugs and the tendencies of each type of abuse to predispose people to violence Current psychopharmacological approaches to managing violent behavior in patients. With more than 1000 updated references, the second edition of Neurobiology of Violence is a seminal resource for clinicians. It is an important tool for psychiatrists, neurologists, psychologists, and all other clinicians who struggle to understand and treat violent patients.

Designed to teach EMS personnel how to function both effectively and safely in high-stress situations.

Fully-updated edition of this award-winning textbook, arranged by presenting complaints with full-color images throughout. For students, residents, and emergency physicians.

Social Emergency Medicine incorporates consideration of patients’ social needs and larger structural context into the practice of emergency care and related research. In doing so, the field explores the interplay of social forces and the emergency care system as they influence the well-being of individual patients and the broader community. Social Emergency Medicine recognizes that in many cases typical fixes such as prescriptions and follow-up visits are not enough; the need for housing, a safe neighborhood in which to exercise or socialize, or access to healthy food must be identified and addressed before patients’ health can be restored. While interest in the subject is growing rapidly, the field of Social Emergency Medicine to date has lacked a foundational text – a gap this book seeks to fill. This book includes foundational chapters on the salience of racism, gender and gender identity, immigration, language and literacy, and neighborhood to emergency care. It provides readers with knowledge and resources to assess and assist emergency department patients with social needs including but not limited to housing, food, economic opportunity, and transportation. Core emergency medicine content areas including violence and substance use are covered uniquely through the lens of Social Emergency Medicine. Each chapter provides background and research, implications and recommendations for practice from the bedside to the hospital/healthcare system and beyond, and case studies for teaching. Social Emergency Medicine: Principles and Practice is an essential resource for physicians and physician assistants, residents, medical students, nurses and nurse practitioners, social workers, hospital administrators, and other professionals who recognize that high-quality emergency care extends beyond the ambulance bay.

The guideline offers clear, concise, and actionable recommendation statements to help clinicians to incorporate recommendations into clinical practice, with the goal of improving quality of care. Each recommendation is given a rating that reflects the level of confidence that potential benefits of an intervention outweigh potential harms.

It is clearly recognized that medical errors represent a significant source of preventable healthcare-related morbidity and mortality. Furthermore, evidence shows that such complications are often the result of a series of smaller errors, missed opportunities, poor communication, breakdowns in established guidelines or protocols, or system-based deficiencies. While such events often start with the misadventures of an individual, it is how such events are managed that can determine outcomes and hopefully prevent future adverse events. The goal of Vignettes in Patient Safety is to illustrate and discuss, in a clinically relevant format, examples in which evidence-based approaches to patient care, using established methodologies to develop highly functional multidisciplinary teams, can help foster an institutional culture of patient safety and high-quality care delivery.

"This book is a comprehensive guidebook of therapeutic de-escalation techniques for nurses and other healthcare professionals to improve safety in healthcare facilities. Readers will explore the concepts of aggression (including risk factors), de-escalation, and therapeutic communication. They will also learn how to perform mental status assessments, manage and even prevent aggressive behavior, and practice conflict resolution, and--when faced with individuals with depressive disorders, suicidal ideation, and/or self-injurious behavior (SIB)--engage in crisis intervention. Specific therapeutic interventions for difficult behavioral issues associated with schizophrenia, dementia, bipolar disorder, cognitive impairment, anxiety and panic disorders are also covered, as are stress-management techniques to help patients cope, tips for creating a caring and healing environment to stop violence before it starts, and a framework for building a healthcare violence prevention program. Nursing students and healthcare professionals of all educational levels will find this book to be immensely valuable. De-escalation is one of the most valuable skills a healthcare worker can possess. Indeed, all healthcare workers need this vital skill to help ensure their safety in the healthcare environment. It's not uncommon for healthcare professionals to encounter an agitated or aggressive person. How that healthcare worker responds will dictate whether the situation is defused or escalated--perhaps even resulting in physical violence. The goal of this book is to ensure the result is the former--to prevent healthcare violence, and to foster a safe healthcare workplace that benefits all and promotes peace and safety for everyone"--