Hot och våld inom LSS

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study was to examine how Swedish caregivers in homes with special service experience and deal with threats and violence from the residents. My research questions was what threats and violence means to the staff and what their thoughts was, what their experiences was of threats and violence in their work, how it is managed and how it is prevented. My aim was also to examine how the fear of being exposed to violence affected them and their everyday work and in which ways the staff handled this. Data was collected from semi-structured interviews with four caregivers working in homes with special service for people with psychiatric functional limitations. It seemed like the respondents’ experienced and defined theats and violence from the residents depending on different factors such as the residents’ disabilities, their own exposion, and sensitivity for stress. The respondents’ experienced that there were different types of threats and violence such as physical and psychological, and they also experienced more subtle types of threats from the residents. Even though previous research and statistics has found that the psychosocial health has deteriorated and threats and violence has increased among staff in the welfare sector and has grown to be a big enviromental work problem, the respondents’ consider themselves safe in their workplace. The reasons for that seem to be because of a support from managers and organisation, experience and knowledge. Another reason for this can be as a result from the respondents using problem focused coping strategies.