Workplace violence and interpersonal deviance among Pakistani nurses: role of sense of coherence

Violence, either physical or emotional, is the bitter reality as a frontline employee in the nursing profession. They either get depressed or retaliate in their job capacity. Drawing on psychological reactance theory, this paper investigates the linkage between workplace violence and interpersonal deviance in the hospital context. Furthermore, this paper emphasizes the critical role of depression as a mediator and a sense of coherence as a moderator. Using a structured survey, 374 nurses employed within public hospitals in Lahore responded, and then the dataset was analyzed using SmartPLS 3.3.3. Results revealed that physical violence experienced by nurses tends to result in depression, leading to retaliation in the form of interpersonal deviance. Findings revealed that a sense of coherence dampened the physical violence-depression relationship. Hence, appropriate strategies are required by the nursing management to reduce such incidences, and if they happen, they must develop the personality skills and thinking among nurses to overcome such shocks at hospitals.