Each month, the Research Council Steering Committee features an APNA member. This month, we are featuring Dr. Della Derscheid!
Della Derscheid, PhD, RN, CNS is an assistant professor of nursing at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. Dr. Derscheid’s research focuses on workplace violence situations in the inpatient medical setting.
Dr. Derscheid’s clinical experience includes pediatric/adult psychiatric nursing and the Behavioral Emergency Response Team (BERT). The BERT is a clinician/security team that responds to bedside situations of challenging and difficult-to-manage patient behavior. The synergy of nursing practice issues between psychiatric and BERT patient populations led to Dr. Derscheid’s research inquiries about risk factors and potential interventions in these situations.
Working full time while going through doctoral school, Dr. Derscheid was fortunate to participate her employer’s scholarship program. The program offered experiential research support with an on-the-job PhD prepared clinical research mentor. That mentorship experience laid the foundation for Dr. Derscheid’s interest in clinical research.
An important issue for health care workers is management of a threat or actual violence in the medical setting. Dr. Derscheid's research seeks to identify risk factors for violent situations in healthcare. These findings will then inform development of effective resources to assess, intervene and mitigate challenging patient behavior at the bedside.
Dr. Derscheid hopes that her research simultaneously promotes safe patient experiences and front-line health care providers’ safety.
Three of Dr. Derscheid’ s publications that may interest readers:
Derscheid, D., Lohse, C. Arnetz, J., (2021). Risk Factors for Assault and Physical Aggression among Medically Hospitalized Adult Patients who had a Behavioral Emergency Call: A Descriptive Study. Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, Mar-Apr; 27(2) 99-110.
Derscheid, D. Arnetz, J. (2020). Patient and Family Member Violent Situations in a Pediatric Hospital: A Descriptive Study. Pediatric Journal of Nursing, 55, 241-249.
Johnson-Howell, J., Derscheid, D. (2020). Implementation of a Preparedness Program to Address Violent Situations in Health Care, Canadian Journal of Nursing Leadership, 33(3),45-54.
Posted on behalf of the Research Council Steering Committee
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