Patterns, Prevalence and Impact of Violence against Health Care Workers in Beni-Suef Governmental Hospitals.

Document Type : Original Article

Abstract

Background: Violence against HCWs is an unethical aggressive behavior posing a problem that affects health care professionals' performance. Workplace Violence are incidents of abuse, threat or assault in the work related environment.  Aim of the work: To assess the magnitude and patterns of violence against HCWs in Beni-Suef Governmental hospitals, exploring the reporting, consequences and impact of these aggression incidents on daily health service performance.  Subjects and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted from December 2013     to October 2014 using a self-administered questionnaire addressed for 672 physicians, nurses and technicians working in the Beni-Suef University, General and Health Insurance Organization hospitals with a response rate of 72% (484/672).  Results: Mean age of the participants was 32.5 ±9.8 years. Violence was most against nurses (92.5%) followed by physicians (80%) with external violence being more prevalent in university hospital. External verbal violence was the most frequent pattern (82%) against nurses.  Reporting was higher for verbal (56%) and psychological (52%) external violence among nurses; and no actions taken after reporting was the commonest leading to passive attitude of the HCW's. Depression and Stress had negative consequences on work performance.    Conclusion and Recommendations: Workplace Violence against HCWs is a growing health care facility problem; most common against nurses being the first line contact person with the patients and their relatives. Hospitals should enhance programs for training and incident reporting, particularly for nurses at higher risk of exposure. In addition; it is important to implement security and safety measures to protect HCWs from perpetrators.

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