“Violence is just part of the job. Every nurse and health care worker experiences it at some point.”

Sentiments like this echo across American hospitals and health care facilities, capturing a disturbing and growing reality. Though Americans think of nursing as the most trusted profession, we often fail to see that it’s also one of the most dangerous.

An alarming 8 in 10 nurses face violence at work. As a result, health care workers are more than four times as likely to be injured by workplace violence than workers in all other industries combined.

Despite these staggering numbers, the full extent of this epidemic may not be fully understood because nurses and other health care workers chronically underreport violent encounters. The American Nurses Association estimates that only 20% to 60% of incidents are accounted for. Additionally, there is no agreed-upon definition for workplace violence or clear way of tracking it on a national level.

As a practicing bedside nurse, I have experienced my fair share of workplace violence. As a professor of nursing, my research shows that violence has become a normalized but underreported part of working in health care and that it affects the care patients receive in pervasive ways.

When people think about workplace violence, they often imagine dramatic physical assaults. Assaults do happen, but violence directed at workers can take many other forms, including verbal threats, intimidation, sexual aggression and bullying.

What makes defining and measuring workplace violence especially difficult in health care settings is the range of people involved. Violence may stem from patients, their families, co-workers or even disgruntled members........

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