Abstract
This research studied the subjective experience of psychiatric nurses who had suffered from violent actions of their inpatients to find out how to support them. Fourteen nurses were interviewed about the emotion aroused by the incidents and how they coped with it. The data were analyzed along the sequence of time. The victims' subjective experience immediately after the violence yielded 98 codes classified into 5 categories. Victims reported their emotional trauma with unendurable feelings denial of their personality, threat to their safety, loss of mutual trust with their patients, etc. They were vulnerable to their colleagues' indifferent attitude and careless interaction and felt healed by their immediate intervention. The victims tried to secure their safety and retrieve mutual trust with their patients. The victims subjective experience in the later stage yielded 239 codes classified into 6 categories. The victims gradually interpreted the meaning of their experience, which process helped them overcome their trauma. The emotion accompanying the memories of violence tended to grow intractable and disabled them to face their experience and interpret it. Therefore, the victims need the support enabling them to deal with their emotion. The attitude and interaction of the colleagues of the victims were the key factors for their recovery from the trauma. The recovery process of victims was disturbed by their colleagues' indifferent attitude and careless interaction and on the contrary, promoted by their caring attitude and careful interaction meeting the victims' needs.
