Patient Aggression in Healthcare Services

The last two decades has seen growing evidence of the frequency of customer misbehaviour. For example, a study of US call centres revealed that the average employee encountered 10 episodes of customer aggression per day . Consumer misbehaviour includes a wide range of activities, ranging from queue jumping and coarse language to vandalism, shoplifting and fraud. One particular focus of customer misbehaviour researchers has been customer aggression towards frontline employees. This type of misbehaviour is considered to include verbal and physical aggression. It is seen as widespread and particularly likely to occur in service settings which, amongst other things, may involve handling money, transporting passengers, working with the public, or working with people with violent tendencies. This includes services such as the police, petrol stations and healthcare. This article explores patient aggression in healthcare services.