Effectiveness of Interventions to Improve Coping and Resilience of Frontline Mental Healthcare Professionals Towards Workplace Violence on Psychiatric Wards—A Systematic Review

Abstract

Workplace violence (WPV) is a harmful phenomenon happening in psychiatric wards. Despite preventive efforts, mental health services cannot eliminate WPV. If mental health services can increase the coping and resilience of frontline mental healthcare professionals (FMHPs) towards WPV, it could contribute to their mental health and well-being. To perform a systematic review of comparative studies on interventions to improve coping and resilience towards WPV aimed at FMHPs working in psychiatric wards. Systematic review on comparative intervention studies, with electronic searches in MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane CENTRAL, PsycINFO and CINAHL. We registered our protocol in PROSPERO (CRD42022373757). Performing a meta-analysis seemed not to be feasible, so we provided a narrative summary of the included studies, methodological quality and results. We included nine studies, with interventions focused on positive behavioural support, resilience enhancement and aggression management training. Most studies reported positive effects, though with a moderate to high risk of bias. Positive behavioural support, biofeedback and aggression management training are promising interventions in our review. Biofeedback interventions and positive behavioural support could be valuable additions to existing training programmes to improve coping and resilience. Future studies should focus on demonstrating the robustness of effects, the mechanism of increasing coping and resilience regarding WPV and the development and implementation of effective interventions.