THE EFFECTS OF THE TYPE OF INFORMATION AND ITS FORMAT OF PRESENTATION ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PATIENTS? AND ESCORTS? NEGATIVE AFFECTIVITY AND THEIR AGGRESSIVE TENDENCIES TOWARD MEDICAL STAFF IN THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT

Aggression directed toward medical staff by patients and escorts at emergency departments (EDs) is a critical and global phenomenon. The current study aims to improve our understanding of the causes of patients' and escorts' aggression, and to suggest an applicable tool of information provision, which may help to decrease this phenomenon. This study investigated the effect of information?s content and its format of presentation on the relationship between patients? and escort?s negative affectivity (NA) and aggressive tendencies toward medical staff in the ED. According to the scientific literature, aggression may be derived from NA, but it may also be a consequence of feelings of injustice. Moreover, providing information may improve the sense of justice, and further decrease aggression. In addition, it is possible that the type of information and its format of presentation may have different kinds of effects. Therefore, three hypotheses were suggested: (a) NA would be positively related to aggressive tendencies; (b) the type of information would moderate the relationship between NA and aggressive tendencies, that is, the relationship would be weakest for explanatory information, stronger for technical information, and strongest for neutral information; (c) format of presentation would moderate the moderation of the type of information. Participants in the study were patients and escorts who waited in the ED in two hospitals in Israel. They were exposed to either large signs, or pamphlets, which contained explanatory, technical, or neutral information regarding the ED. All participants filled out a questionnaire which measured their NA and aggressive tendencies. Results showed that NA and aggressive tendencies were positively related. However, the type of information did not moderate this relationship. A three-way interaction was found between NA, type of information and format of presentation, where in the private condition, neutral information had a stronger effect of decreasing the relationship between NA and aggressive tendencies. Explanatory and technical information did not have such effect. The effect was not found in the public condition. The study demonstrated the link between NA and aggression in the ED. Furthermore, the study showed that the combination of neutral information and private presentation may help lessen this relationship.