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Research
Recently Completed Research and Projects
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Workplace Violence
Violence in the workplace represents a global workplace health hazard. Rates of nonfatal assaults in the U.S. are highest in the social and health services industries, including hospitals. Risk factors, in addition to female sex, include workplace environmental factors such as poor visibility, working alone, and shift work. It has been proposed that perception of fear by the potential victim is often the best predictor of subsequent violence. The effectiveness of preventive interventions has not been well-studied.
The Harrell Center, in conjunction with the Departments of Epidemiology and Psychology, conducted a cross-sectional study to collect preliminary data and evaluate the feasibility of a larger study of workplace violence in the health care industry. This study focused on nurses in one Florida hospital in 2005. Data were collected by self-administered, anonymous questionnaires on demographics, work history, environment, perception of safety, physical and verbal assaults, health impact and preventive interventions.
198 surveys were completed and returned. Forty-eight respondents (24.5%) reported physical violence and 103 (52.1%) reported verbal violence at least once in the last 12 months. The majority of both physical and verbal assaults came from patients, although 32 respondents reported verbal assaults by a co-worker. There was little association between workplace characteristics such as security monitors, routine patrols, and lighting with risk of assault. There was some suggestion that increased hours of patient contact and non-daytime shifts increased risks of physical assault. Fear of working alone was predictive of verbal assaults (OR=4.2, 1.2-15.3). The majority (over 85% of respondents) reported having violence prevention training, policies and procedures, and they agreed that reporting physical assaults was encouraged. Nevertheless, 32% of those reporting physical assaults believed it could have been prevented. This study indicated that nurses experience high levels of preventable verbal and physical abuse, despite violence prevention policies and practices in place. Drs. Coulter, Heather Stockwell and Paul Spector collaborated on this research.
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Library Project
The Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute (FMHI) Research Library of the University of South Florida, in partnership with The Harrell Center, conducted a survey of all libraries in the state of Florida to determine the status of their information on domestic violence. An analysis of the data indicated that a large number of libraries had inadequate information on domestic violence. Some libraries had a good collection of books, but most had a limited supply of books and other materials on family violence.
Sixty-four percent of library staff reported that they did not have enough information on domestic violence. Eighty-nine percent of libraries requested more information on domestic violence if it was provided free or at low cost. Only 21% reported that they had any guides to services and 17% had brochures for victims of violence. Information on domestic violence was requested in the form of books, brochures, facts, and guides to services. Eighty percent were willing to house a print collection on domestic violence in the library. In addition, 29% of the libraries stated an interest in workshops to create awareness about domestic violence locally.
In response to this need, the Harrell Center contacted and received information from nearly all of the domestic violence shelters serving various counties in Florida. This information in the form of fliers, brochures, palm cards on shelter services, legal information on how to obtain injunctions, and a recommended list of current books, articles, and videos was sent to all libraries in Florida.
In 2006, Ardis Hanson, FMHI library director, contacted collaborators in Central America, Aruba, and other countries and joint library projects are now being planned. These projects will compare data in these countries with new data in Florida to develop intervention programs.
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The Impact of Domestic Violence on the Employment Experiences of Women on Welfare
The results from a literature review demonstrate that a relationships exists among welfare, domestic violence and employment, however this relationship is often complex. Through a grant from the Department of Justice, the Harrell Center has examined the relationship between the experience of domestic violence and barriers to employment and self-sufficiency among welfare recipients. This study has provided a unique opportunity to quantitatively and qualitatively track the experiences of welfare recipients as they transition off welfare and initiate and sustain employment.
88% of women in this research study experienced psychological or physical domestic violence. 60% reported experiencing a level of domestic violence moderate or higher in frequency. Women who had experienced past domestic violence and were in a current relationship were almost four times more likely to have experienced domestic violence in the past 12 months. However, women with technical training were 2.5 times less likely to have experienced recent violence.
There were moderate to strong correlations between social support, employer support, mental health, and parenting stress for women regardless of current relationship status. Physical health, on the other hand, was correlated with social support and the ability to deal with parenting stress only for the group not in a current relationship. The effects of domestic violence are apparent in the relationship of the three intercorrelated variables (social support, mental health, and parenting stress) and their negative correlations with both past and current violence (for women in a current relationship). Increasing age is associated with more negative physical health, and physical health is positively correlated with having had education in the previous year. Race was an important variable in this study. For single women not in a current relationship, being African-American is positively correlated with social support, mental health, and low parenting stress, as is having a suitable home. Being African-American also predicted less parenting stress, as did having at least a technical education or skill while having domestic violence in the last 12 months predicted higher parenting stress.
Further research is needed to better understand how state welfare programs can assist women who experience violence in becoming independent and self-sufficient by entering and remaining in the workforce.
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Technical Assistance in the Dominican Republic
Representatives of the Harrell Center, both students and faculty, traveled twice to the Dominican Republic and met with various officials about ways to improve the response to domestic violence in the country. The representatives met with the Office of Women's Health (Secretaria de Estado de la Mujer), a government agency that plans national plans for domestic violence, and with Profamilia, a non-government group providing family planning and medical care, and with other groups. The meetings helped the Harrell Center representatives gain a better understanding of the needs of victims of domestic violence in the Dominican Republic, national policies and the services that are available to victims.
Following the meetings in Santo Domingo, the group traveled to the city of Piedra Blanca, where a local task force has begun planning for the first domestic violence shelter in the country. The Piedra Blanca project involves transforming a house into a domestic violence shelter. Representatives from various agencies in the U.S. such as the Spring of Tampa Bay provided technical assistance to the local planning group. The domestic violence shelter is a pilot project staffed and operated by local professionals. Following these trips a group from the Dominican Republic came to Tampa for a weeklong visit to learn about the service network here, with particular focus on the court system, offender treatment programs and victim service agencies.
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THE JAMES
AND JENNIFER HARRELL CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF FAMILY VIOLENCE
13201 Bruce B. Downs Blvd. MDC 56 •
Tampa, FL 33612-3807 • Phone: (813) 974-7832 • Fax: (813) 974-7830
Department of Community and Family Health • College of Public
Health • University of South Florida
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