Violence towards healthcare staff at emergency departmant of a public hospital: the rate of reported events of violence

Abstract

Objective: There has been an increase in violence towards physicians and healthcare staff in the health-care environment in recent years. The risk of violence remains stronger in people working in health institutions than the ones working in other businesses. We aimed to search violence towards healthcare staff and rates of event reporting in a public hospital emergency department.

Methods: The survey which is performed in fifty employees during face to face interviews. They were asked exposure to violence, type of violence and report or underreport of violance.

Results: In this study, 82% of emergency department healthcare staff reported the exposure to violence independent from sex, age, professional seniority (p<0.001). Verbal violence were found to be more common than physical violence and sexual assault (p<0.001). Emergency department, doctors (87.5%), nurses (100%) and laboratory workers (90.9%) were the most vulnerable population to violence with respect to secretaries (50%) (p<0.005). The rate of violence reported events of violence was low (26.8%) (p<0.001). The most common cause of violence was prolonged waiting time for physical examination.

Conclusions: Although the incidince of violence towards healthcare staff at emergency departments were high, the most of the healthcare workers underreported their exposure to violance.