Workplace violence in the health care sector: A review of staff training and integration of training evaluation models

Internationally, workplace violence within the health care sector is acknowledged as a serious and increasing problem, and ‘management of aggression’ training is now firmly established as part of an organization's health and safety response. This article considers the extent of the problem, the prominent role afforded to staff training in tackling the problem, indicative training content, and models of training evaluation. Several published evaluations of training will be reviewed in order to illustrate the development of training design and content, and highlight measures used to determine possible training effects. Finally, an enhanced, integrated hierarchy of training evaluation measures is offered that may prove useful to managers, trainers, and training departments as they struggle to determine the proper training and appropriate trainers for the particular needs of their staff.