The Association Between Physical Violence Experience and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Emergency Department Nurses: The Moderating Role of Isolation

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the moderating role of isolation in the relationship between physical violence experience and post-traumatic stress disorder in emergency department nurses. Physical violence experience, post-traumatic stress disorder, and isolation of self-compassion were measured using a structured questionnaire among 96 nurses in the emergency departments located in D and G cities in South Korea from June to July of 2017. The collected data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0 and SPSS PROCESS Macro. The results showed that isolation was significantly and positively correlated with post-traumatic stress disorder. The explanatory power for post-traumatic stress disorder in emergency department nurses increased when the interaction between isolation and physical violence experience was entered. The high-isolation group showed higher increase in post-traumatic stress disorder than the low-isolation group. Isolation was found to be the moderator that increased the negative influence of physical violence experience on post-traumatic stress disorder. The findings suggest that consideration should be given to the fact that the effect of physical violence experience on post-traumatic stress disorder varies depending on the level of isolation of emergency department nurses when developing intervention programs for post-traumatic stress disorder in emergency department nurses.