Legal Issues Affecting the Healthcare Work place Research Paper

Legal Issues Affecting the Healthcare Work place - Research Paper Example Bullying can include a series of incidents when overt or covert aggression can be inflicted on a person through spreading of rumors, withholding data, blocking promotion, or inflicting psychological abuse through exclusion (Leonard, Norman, and Spring, 2009). Horizontal violence is also a form of bullying, but it involves non-physical acts of aggression between employees of similar hierarchical positions. It includes: criticizing, insulting, undermining, and bickering (Leonard, Norman, and Spring, 2009). Mobbing involves negative actions of a group directed towards one employee. Parties involved may be those of higher positions abusing those in power positions. Workplace abuse may either be physical through shoving, pushing, and be kicking, or it may also be verbal through berating or threatening; it may be active or passive, and it may also be directly or indirectly carried out. In healthcare, studies and reviews indicate that these workers are about 16 times more likely to suffer workplace violence as compared to other employees. Moreover, nurses who are often at the frontline of health services are subjected to abuse from family members of patients. These nurses are unavoidably exposed to these dangers because they are exposed to patients who have issues related to substance abuse, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, mental health problems, and other social issues. In effect, the patient’s health issues and unfavorable conditions when they face nurses create dangerous scenarios for nurses.