Determinants of workplace violence against clinical physicians in hospitals

Abstract

Determinants of workplace violence against clinical physicians in hospitals: Jeng‐Cheng Wu, et al. Department of Urology, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taiwan Objective Workplace violence in the health sector is a worldwide concern. Physicians play an essential role in health‐care teamwork; thus, understanding how organizational factors influence workplace violence against physicians is critical. Methods A total of 189 physicians from three public hospitals and one private hospital in Northern Taiwan completed a survey, and the response rate was 47.1%. This study was approved by the institutional review board of each participating hospital. The 189 physicians were selected from the Taipei area, Taiwan. Results The results showed that 41.5% of the respondents had received at least one workplace‐related physical or verbal violent threat, and that 9.8% of the respondents had experienced at least one episode of sexual harassment in the 3 months before the survey. Logistic regression analysis revealed that physicians in psychiatry or emergency medicine departments received more violent threats and sexual harassment than physicians in other departments. Furthermore, physicians with a lower workplace safety climate (OR=0.89; 95% CI=0.81−0.98) and more job demands (OR=1.15; 95% CI=1.02−1.30) were more likely to receive violent threats. Conclusions This study found that workplace violence was associated with job demands and the workplace safety climate. Therefore, determining how to develop a workplace safety climate and ensure a safe job environment for physicians is a crucial management policy issue for health‐care systems.

Organizational Determinants of Workplace Violence Against Hospital Workers

“…Job demands, often considered a proxy for work stress, 47 were significantly associated with violent threats towards physicians in a Taiwanese study, 24 which supports findings in the current study. However, in that study, safety climate ratings were also significantly protective of threats, whereas in our study, work stress was only significant before the safety climate variable was added to the model for verbal violence.…”

“…24-25 In a Taiwanese study of physicians from four hospitals, lower safety climate ratings, along with higher job demands, were associated with workplace violence. 24 Although that study distinguished between violent threats and sexual harassment, violent threats were defined as any verbal or physical violence, and thus did not distinguish between the two when examining safety climate determinants. A study from a single Israeli hospital found that enhancing the safety climate via a three-day educational program helped to decrease the number of aggressive incidents towards staff on closed psychiatric wards.…”

“…27 Job demands, like work stress, is a measure that reflects time pressure and predicted violent threats towards physicians in Taiwan. 24 …”

Factors associated with physicians’ behaviours to prevent needlestick and sharp injuries

“…Job demands. Five items of a Chinese version [35] of the Job Content Questionnaire [36], with five response categories ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), were used to measure the job demands physicians experienced. Items were slightly modified to be applicable to the health care context when needed.…”

Violence Against Healthcare Workers in the Light of White Code Data

“…24 Birçok çalışmada, çalışmamıza benzer şekilde sözel ve fiziksel şiddet en sık acil kliniği çalışanları karşı gerçekleşmiştir. 25,26 Bunun sebebi acil kliniklerinin yoğun olması; başvuran vakaların çeşitliliği ve genel olarak acilde stres seviyesinin yüksek olması olabilir.…”