National Guidelines in the United States - Workplace Violence

Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence

The Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Health Care and Social Service Workers offer both policy recommendations and practical ideas employers can use to deter violence in the workplace, without jeopardizing compassionate care for clients and patients. The guidelines were designed to help employers who want to develop effective workplace violence prevention programs identify and prevent potentially violent situations and settings.

The Labour Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) focused these first guidelines on the health care and social services industries because in these industries' nearly one million workers experience a dramatically higher risk of fatal assault than other workers in private industry and nearly two-thirds of all non-fatal assaults. The vast majority of these endangered workers are women (76.1 percent of hospital workers, 79.1 percent of other health service workers and 80.8 percent of social service workers.) A set of guidelines to protect workers in the night retail industry will follow.