Violence in the workplace

Workplace violence generally refers to acts or threats of physical violence, harassment, intimidation or other threatening behaviour that occurs at the worksite, whether the perpetrator is a client, patient, student, customer, co-worker or family member. IWH research focuses on the prevention of workplace violence at both the workplace and systems (policy) levels.

Journal article
Journal article

Increased workplace bullying against nurses during COVID-19: a health and safety issue

Published: Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, June 2022
Journal article
Journal article

Workplace violence prevention: flagging practices and challenges in hospitals

Published: Workplace Health & Safety, March 2022
Journal article
Journal article

A realist review of violence prevention education in healthcare

Published: Healthcare, January 2021
Blurry image of health-care workers running
At Work article

Understanding challenges in hospitals’ workplace violence reporting systems

How consistently and reliably are hospital violence incidents reported in Ontario? An IWH research team surveyed workers at six hospitals in the province in 2017. Despite mandatory reporting, the results showed great variation in reporting patterns.
Published: August 2020
Canadian Society of Safety Engineers logo
IWH in the media

Understanding challenges in hospitals' workplace violence reporting systems

To address workplace violence, we need to understand the size of the problem. That requires having reporting systems that collect reliable and valid indicators of of workplace events, consistently over time and across workplaces. This is not easy, writes IWH's Dr. Peter Smith, drawing on two studies about reporting patterns and challenges at Ontario's hospitals.
Published: Contact, April 2020
Journal article
Journal article

Time to return to work following workplace violence among direct healthcare and social workers

Published: Occupational and Environmental Medicine, March 2020
Workers Health & Safety Centre logo
IWH in the media

Workplace violence solutions for schools central to recent ETFO symposium

Participants from across Canada came together to discuss the most urgent health and safety concern facing education workers today—growing violence and harassment in schools. At the symposium, IWH Scientific Co-Director & Senior Scientist Dr. Peter Smith spoke of data showing the rise in workplace violence in Ontario is mainly experienced by women in the education sector.
Published: Workers Health & Safety Centre, February 2020
IWH Speaker Series
IWH Speaker Series

Supporting hospital staff to manage aggressive patient behaviour: A randomized controlled trial

As in many other hospitals, staff at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital were experiencing high rates of workplace violence. In response, a multidisciplinary team developed a program to standardize practices for identifying and managing patients with aggressive behaviour. Given the dearth of evaluation studies on this type of workplace intervention, the team also set up a randomized controlled study on the program's effectiveness. They share results in this IWH Speaker Series presentation.
Published: November 2019
The Globe and Mail logo
IWH in the media

As teachers report more violent incidents in schools, boards struggle

In school boards across Canada, more educators say they’re being hurt on the job, according to data reviewed by The Globe and Mail. But there are gaps in data collection, and debates over the reasons for the rise in reports of violence, writes Carolyn Alphonso, citing IWH Senior Scientist Dr. Peter Smith.
Published: The Globe and Mail, September 2019
Journal article
Journal article

Assault predicts time away from work after claims for work-related mild traumatic brain injury

Published: Occupational & Environmental Medicine, May 2019