Date of Award

Summer 2026

Document Type

Project – Full Written

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Committee Chair

Tiffany Stewart

Abstract

Workplace violence is a persistent challenge in healthcare and is associated with decreased psychological well-being, increased emotional distress, burnout, and staff turnover among nurses. Healthcare organizations are increasingly seeking evidence-based interventions to support employees following workplace violence incidents. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to implement and evaluate a peer support program for medical-surgical staff following workplace violence incidents and to examine its effect on perceived psychological well-being.

A nonrandomized pre-test/post-test quality improvement design was implemented on a 38-bed medical-surgical unit in a rural community hospital. Registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and certified nursing assistants were invited to participate using convenience sampling. Eight peer responders completed standardized training in active listening, empathy, trauma-informed care, confidentiality, and peer support processes before implementation of the intervention. The peer support program was available for 6 weeks. Perceived psychological well-being was measured before and after implementation using the Ryff Psychological Well-Being Scale. Descriptive statistics, an independent samples t-test, and Cohen's d were used to analyze quantitative outcomes. Informal participant and peer responder feedback, peer responder training completion, peer support utilization, and RN turnover data were also evaluated. All identified peer responders successfully completed training, exceeding the project objective of at least 90% completion. Fourteen peer support encounters were documented during the implementation period, demonstrating staff engagement with the intervention. Mean psychological well-being score increased by 9.88 points (5.04%) following implementation; however, the difference was not statistically significant, t (31) =34.172 tons-0.94, p = .353, with a small effect size (Cohen's d = 0.29). Informal feedback suggested that participants valued the opportunity to receive emotional support from trained peers and perceived increased psychological safety and organizational support.

Implementation of a structured peer support program was feasible within a medical-surgical setting and demonstrated potential to support healthcare workers following workplace violence incidents. Continued implementation and long-term evaluation are recommended to further assess the intervention's impact on employee well-being, resilience, and retention.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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