Isolation moderates effects of physical violence experience on post-traumatic stress disorder among emergency department nurses

This study aimed to investigate whether isolation moderates relationship between physical violence experience and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in emergency department nurses. Ninety-six emergency department nurses based in D and G cities of South Korea were enrolled in this study. The participants’ physical violence experience, PTSD, and isolation were measured using structured questionnaires. The data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0 and SPSS PROCESS Macro (Hayes, 2013). The relationship among emergency department nurses’ physical violence experience, isolation, and PTSD was examined with the Spearman’s Rho correlation coefficient. The moderating effect of isolation on the relationship between physical violence experience and PTSD in emergency department nurses was verified using moderated regression and conditional effects. The results showed that isolation had a significant positive correlation with PTSD. The explanatory power of the model for PTSD of emergency department nurses increased when the interaction between isolation and physical violence experience was added. The high isolation group showed a greater increase of PTSD compared to the low isolation group. Isolation was a moderating variable that increased the negative effects of physical violence experience on PTSD. The results of this study suggest that intervention programs for PTSD in emergency department nurses should consider the varying effects of physical violence experience and degree of isolation.