Violence, Harassment, and Turnover Intention in Home and Community Care: The Role of Training

Abstract

Background: Violence and harassment affect healthcare workers’ well-being and career decisions in the home and community care sector. Purpose: The objective of this study is to assess the role of training in alleviating the relationship between violence and harassment at work and turnover intention among personal support workers (PSWs). Methodology/Approach: Cross-sectional survey data from 1401 PSWs in Ontario, Canada are analyzed with structural equation modeling. Utilizing a resource perspective, the associations between job demands (i.e., violence and harassment at work), personal resources (i.e., self-esteem), job resources (i.e., workplace violence training and challenging task training), stress, and intention to stay among personal support workers (PSWs) are examined. Results: Challenging task training is positively associated with self-esteem and negatively associated with stress, whereas workplace violence training does not have a significant association with either variable. Stress has a negative relationship with intention to stay. Self-esteem is the mediator of both associations between violence and harassment at work and stress and between challenging task training and stress. Discussion: The results point to varied degrees of training effectiveness that may be shaping turnover decisions of PSWs who experience violence and harassment in home and community care organizations. Practice implications: There seems to be a need to assess and redesign workplace violence training. Home and community care managers might be able to lower the impact of violence and harassment on PSWs’ turnover by providing training that is not directly related to workplace violence and harassment.