Outcomes of Aggression and Victimization in Social Welfare Services.

This study examined two significant phenomena that occur in the workplace, aggression and victimization, and their outcomes. The study's participants were 470 social workers employed by social welfare services in Israel. The examined outcomes were stress symptoms, emotional exhumation, and decline in quality of service climate. The associations between aggression, victimization, and their outcomes were examined via linear regression during Stata 14. The study found that the similar outcomes of aggression and victimization are stress symptoms and emotional exhaustion, while service climate (decline in quality) was associated only with victimization. While most studies have examined mainly victimization outcomes, the current study examined both aggression and victimization outcomes. This article sheds light on the similarities and the difference of outcomes between aggression and victimization and explicates the phenomena of workplace aggression from two important and complementary aspects of aggression and victimization. It is important to refer to either aggression or victimization while considering workplace aggression. Authors recommend for further studies to continue to investigate both aggression and victimization while researching workplace aggression outcomes.

A New Tool for Determining and Monitoring Public Healthcare Systems.

The challenge of maintaining a standard of treatment has become a core issue due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and many countries are currently addressing this issue. Since public health policymaking is a multidimensional issue, including different aspects, measures, features, and scales, and so forth, multidimensional definitions of reasonable medical treatments may improve planning and performance standards for public health systems. This study emphasizes the need to settle all of the dimensions in policymaking to aim to elicit reasonable medical treatment definitions and adequacy assessments from diverse healthcare stakeholders and offer a universally applicable reasonable medical treatment formula. Interviews of thirty-two stakeholders were qualitatively analyzed and mapped onto an innovative quadrilateral model. The findings showed that most interviewees viewed the system positively. However, they identified various lacunas-clinical/service, social/ethical, legal, and economically reasonable medical treatment aspects. A generic formula for the medical sub-services' activity accounted for these, given any specific time period and technological development. The stakeholders' positive assessment reflects an acquiescence for resource allocation and policy enforcement, rather than optimal healthcare. Nationally, this should be addressed. The quadrilateral mapping of the stakeholders enhances the translatability and generalizability of the systemic data. A comprehensive reasonable medical treatment formula will help the policymakers to optimize services, and it will render healthcare planning/implementation transparent, effective, and responsible.

Working together, thinking differently? HRM practices and trust in the health care context.

PURPOSE: Providing health care services requires collaboration between several occupations. This study aimed to reveal how three occupational groups (nurses, physicians, and administrators) perceive human resources management practices (HRMP) and whether these practices are differently associated with trust in the clinic manager. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The study included 290 employees from 29 primary care clinics, all affiliated with a health care organisation that operates in the public sector. Self-reporting questionnaires measured participants' perceptions of six HRMP across occupations and their association with trust in the clinic manager. Variation between occupational groups was analysed through one-way analysis of variance (for groups' perceptions of HRMP and trust in manager) and t-tests (for the association between perceived HRMP and trust in manager). FINDINGS: The results indicate some differences in perceived HRMP and trust across groups. Also, some differences were found across occupations regarding the relationship between HRMP and trust in the clinic manager: Nurses' perceptions significantly differed from those of physicians and administrators, yet there was no significant difference between the two latter groups. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Health care organisations should expand their human resources architecture and customise their HRMP for each occupational group based on that group's perceptions of the workplace. This can nurture trust in managers and create a climate for trust as a mechanism that encourages employees from distinct occupational groups to work together for the benefit of their clinic, organisation, and patients. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: This study contributes to the discussion about the contextualisation of HRMP, providing insights regarding perceptions of HRMP as an enabler of an organisation's strategy.

Understanding health outcomes following workplace aggression: A social exchange perspective.

This study explored health outcomes following workplace aggression among social workers in Israel. Grounded in the social exchange theory, a relationship-based perspective was used to explain the mechanism through which exposure to workplace aggression results in employee outcomes. Reports of employees and managers were analysed with respect to the impact of varied forms of aggressive behaviours perpetrated by clients and co-workers on posttraumatic stress and somatic symptoms. The intervening effects on symptoms of two forms of perceived organisational support, organisational procedural support and interpersonal co-worker support operationalised as team trust were examined. Overall, 548 employees and 89 managers in 31 social services departments completed self-report questionnaires. Results revealed positive associations between exposure to both co-worker and client aggression, and posttraumatic stress and somatic symptoms. Importantly, while perceived organisational support is often equated with social support, this study found that two elements, organisational procedural support and team trust, had differing impacts on somatic and posttraumatic stress symptoms following WPA. Specifically, team trust was negatively associated with symptoms, while organisational procedural support showed no effect. This study has important implications for timely prevention measures to deal with workplace aggressions and valuable directions for future studies.

Ethics Review Boards for Research With Human Participants: Past, Present, and Future.

The debate around ethics review boards (IRBs) has assumed an increasingly central place in academic practice and discourse. In this article, we summarize a unique workshop (study-group) that convened at the University of Haifa, attended by 27 academics from around the globe, representing nine countries in four continents. The participants presented data and points of view, which served as the basis for an open, interdisciplinary discussion. The group developed a set of recommendations, including working toward a transition from a review system to an advisory and validation system; focusing on respectful research approach to participants, rather than "ethical" research; building a procedure that focuses on feedback, rather than the process itself; recognizing that a unified examination need not necessarily be standardized; and constructing a feedback procedure in which researchers can respond to the review of their research.

Client aggression toward social workers and social services in Israel--a qualitative analysis.

The aggressive behavior of clients toward employees in service organizations is an alarming phenomenon, which harms employees and damages the organization itself. Employees all over the public sector, especially in social service departments, are continuously exposed to aggressive behavior by clients. The focus of the current study is on understanding the short- and long-term implications of aggressive client behavior on social workers and the organization in which they operate. A qualitative approach was used to understand the perspective of the workers exposed to aggressive client behavior as well as its organizational implications. In-depth interviews were conducted with the 40 participants between February and May, 2009. The participants included district managers, agency managers, supervisors, social workers, and administrators, in 17 agencies all over the country. The study findings identified negative impacts of client aggression on several levels and on several focal areas. On the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral levels, both short-term and long-term consequences can be seen, which affect not only the attacked individual but also resonate throughout the organization. Individual events may diffuse to affect other levels of the service process by role-learning, imitation of behavior, and by noticing that the organization provides incentives for client aggression, while providing disincentives for assertiveness and self-protective actions on the part of workers.

Predictors of "quality of work" and "poor health" among primary health-care personnel in Catalonia: evidence based on cross-sectional, retrospective and longitudinal design.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this paper is to test a theoretically driven model of the relationship between job demands, employees' motivation and resources, and supervisory support on employees' quality of work lives and their general health. DEISGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The study uses large survey data that were collected in the years 1995, 2002, and 2003 respectively, drawn from the public health care employees sector in Catalonia (Spain). Albeit cross-sectional methodology, the study embraces an additional retrospective and longitudinal design. FINDINGS: The 2002 cross-sectional study (n = 2,926) supports the assertion made by stress researchers regarding the extent to which both job demands and lack of supervisory support predict low QWL and negative health outcomes: perceived motivation, resources and capabilities also appear as determinants but to a lesser extent. The stability of the results obtained was tested retrospectively by cross-legging the model for the 1995 survey (n = 2,901). In addition, a follow-up study (i.e. longitudinal) was conducted in 2003 (n = 10,003) to see whether the model still holds. By and large, the three-level design shows the stability of the prediction in the same direction. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The paper discusses some possible prevention strategies to reduce the low QWL and negative health outcomes within the Public Health Sector. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The paper covers all categories of personnel in the health care personnel and thus external validity is very strong. Findings permit the taking of concrete actions to reduce stress, reduce negative health outcomes and by and large enhance the quality of work lives of the people in this sector.