Workplace Violence in Healthcare: A Single-Center Study on Causes, Consequences and Prevention Strategies

Abstract

Introduction: Workplace violence is one of the main risk factors in the professional world. Healthcare workers are at higher risk when compared to other sectors. Our study aimed to characterize physical and verbal violence in a public hospital and to define occupational health prevention and surveillance strategies.Material and Methods: Single center observational cross-sectional study, carried amongst healthcare workers in a public hospital in Lisbon. A qualitative survey was carried out through six in-depth interviews. A quantitative survey was carried through questionnaires delivered to 32 workers. A significance level of 5% was accepted in the assessment of statistical differences. The Mann-Whitney test and the Fisher’s exact test were used to calculate p values.Results: The main results are: (1) 41 violence incidents were reported in the quantitative phase; (2) 5/21 [23.81%] victims notified the incident to the occupational health department; (3) 18/21 [85.71%] victims reported a permanent state of hypervigilance; (4) 22/28 [78.57%] participants self-reported poor or no familiarity with internal reporting procedures; (5) 24/28 [85.71%] participants believed it is possible to minimize workplace violence.Discussion: Workplace violence is favored by unrestricted access to working areas, absence of security guards and police officers or scarce intervention. The low notification rate contributes to organizational lack of action. The state of hypervigilance reported in our study reflects the negative effects of threatening occupational stressors on mental health.Conclusion: Our results show that workplace violence is a relevant risk factor that significantly impacts workers’ health in a noxious manner, deserving a tailored occupational health approach whose priority areas and strategies have been determined.

Predictors of violence against health professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil: A cross-sectional study

“…Participants who suffered violence (556) were included in the network analysis with 16 variables: 7 sociodemographic and 9 related to the violence suffered. We identified that physical violence (8) was not associated with other types of violence. We noticed an association between psycho-verbal (9) and psycho-non-verbal (10).…”

“…Violence at work involving health professionals is a phenomenon that has been researched at an international level and, despite the attention it has been receiving, this topic still represents an important challenge. Studies highlight that health workers are at greater risk of suffering violence when compared to other professional sectors, and the worrying naturalization of this phenomenon reinforces the increase in occurrences and the personal consequences for health care activity [ 8 , 9 ].…”

“…We found articles reporting on discrimination and violence against health professionals [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. However, to date, no studies have been found in Brazil using the network analysis to demonstrate the variables involved in the occurrence of violence against health professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

I do not even tell my partner: Nurses’ perceptions of verbal and physical violence against nurses working in a regional hospital

“…Similarly, Morken, Johansen, and Alsaker (2015) found that even nurses who reported an incident in the past often would not report again in the future due to the perception of nothing really happens and the report forms were placed at the bottom of a drawer. Most participants reported that they were not familiar with their hospital internal reporting procedures (Antao et al, 2020). Chen et al (2013) highlighted reasons for not reporting violent incidents including the following: no benefits were gained from reporting incidents; nurses did not want to avoid their job responsibilities and lack of time to complete a report.…”

“…Nurses are at high risk of experiencing Workplace Violence (WPV) (Hegney, Tuckett, Parker, & Eley, 2010) compared to other sectors (Antao et al, 2020;Han et al, 2017). Chapman and Styles (2006) described the everyday reality of nurses facing episodes of violence and aggression while working in the Australian healthcare system.…”