Violence and Aggression in the Health Care Sector

Definitions depend on the source defining them, on their purpose and following use. The principal finding is that violence is a field of aggression, that does not implement, that each aggression involves a form of violence (Lovaš, 2010). For the purpose of this study, we thus consider a relation in which conflicting intentions can arise between a non-medical healthcare professional and a patient or his/her relative (reciprocally) and escalate into aggression or violent behaviour. The most frequent conflicts in the health service are caused by escalated negative emotions (particularly of non-psychiatric patients, but it does not exclude psychiatric causes of violence) that are not properly processed. In the case of impossibility (inability) to control emotions, it leads  to a behaviour that we call “violent”. 

For the purpose of our study, we define violence as an escalated aggressive behaviour resulting from uncontrollable negative emotions and other associated factors with elements of such verbal or physical aggression that could not be considered as acceptable, because it directly endangers interests and dignity of the personality against which it is aimed. The definition involves also defensive behaviour that through its vigorousness exceeds the frame of an attack, and it was possible to convert this threat to a milder defence form in certain circumstances.