A study led by the Mayo Clinic shows that patient violence spans care settings, starting in the out-of-hospital setting, continuing in the emergency department, and persisting into inpatient units.
The study, published June 18 in Annals of Emergency Medicine, analyzed 4,721 violent patient encounters (comprising 2,791 distinct encounters from 2,251 unique patients). These violent encounters included 206 out-of-hospital, 868 ED, and 3,561 inpatient hospital incidents between December 2022 and November 2023. Violent patient encounters included verbal abuse, physical assault, and threats. Among the 2,791 distinct encounters, 28.1% of patients carried aggression into a second setting, 12.6% into a third, and 7.5% into a fourth. The authors wrote of the importance of exploring the “Contributing factors such as care transitions and underlying risk factors to inform targeted interventions aimed at preventing violence and safeguarding healthcare staff.”
The out-of-hospital setting had the highest rate of reported violence per 10 patient encounter hours, followed by the ED. Age profiles shifted by location: median age for out-of-hospital encounters was 40 years, 32 years in the ED, and 54 years in inpatient hospital settings.
