Violence in health care saw a slight dip in 2023, yet “abusive or violent events, and unsafe conditions continue to permeate nurses’ workplaces,” according to nurses surveyed for a study published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Researchers with the University of Michigan in 2022 and 2023 asked 9,150 and 7,059 nurses, respectively, whether they were planning to leave their workplace, finding that 39.1% planned to exit in 2023, up from 32% the prior year.
Nurses cited such issues as violence, “high emotional exhaustion,” understaffed hospitals and increasing overtime shifts as reasons for leaving.
On the workplace safety front, nurses reported fewer acts of violence in 2023: 43.4% of respondents in 2023 said they experienced an act of violence compared with 50.2% in 2022.
