Reporting and consequences of workplace violence in six Ontario hospitals

11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Institute for Work & Health
481 University Avenue, Suite 800
Toronto, Ontario

Peter Smith
Institute for Work & Health

Understanding trends in workplace violence in health care or other sectors relies, in part, on the collection of reliable and valid indicators of the incidence of workplace violence gathered in a consistent way over time. In 2018, the Province of Ontario will start collecting the number of workplace violence events (annually) as a new mandatory indicator within each hospital’s quality improvement plan. However, we currently do not know what proportion of workplace violence incidents (as defined under the Occupational Health and Safety Act) are captured by each hospital’s reporting system. We also lack information on reasons for not reporting workplace violence incidents, which could be integrated into approaches to improve overall workplace violence reporting in the health-care sector.

In this presentation, Dr. Peter Smith of the Institute for Work & Health provides findings from a survey in late 2017 of over 1,000 workers in six Ontario hospitals. The survey focused on the incidence, reporting and consequences of workplace violence. Smith also discusses the implications of these findings on the interpretation of the mandatory indicator of workplace violence in Ontario.

About presenter

Photo of Peter Smith

Dr. Peter Smith is president and senior scientist at the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) in Toronto, and a professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Prior to moving into the president's role in January 2022, Smith was IWH's scientific co-director.

About IWH Speaker Series

The IWH Speaker Series brings you the latest findings from work and health researchers from the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) and beyond. For those unable to attend, the recorded webinar of most presentations in the IWH Speaker Series are made available on its web page within a week of the event.