Workplace violence towards Congolese health care workers: A survey of 436 healthcare facilities in Katanga province, Democratic Republic of Congo

Abstract

sity-Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate workplace violence by patients or their relatives towards health-care workers in Congolese hospitals. Methods: Through the autumn of 2012, a crosssectional survey on workplace violence was conducted in a sample of 2,210 registered health-care workers (989 males and 1,221 females, aged 33 ± 8 years) from 436 hospitals located in the province of Katanga, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Verbal aggression, harassment and physical violence perpetrated by patients or their relatives within the previous year along with factors contributing to violence, were recorded, and the response rate was 99%. Results: About 80.1% of the health-care workers had experienced one or more types of workplace violence. Overall, the severity of workplace violence varied from verbal aggression (57.4%) and harassment (15.2%) to physical violence (7.5%). Patients were the major perpetrators of verbal aggression and harassment, whereas patients' relatives were mainly involved in physical violence. The frequency of workplace violence was similar across hospitals. Male health-care workers were more likely to be victims of physical violence, whereas female health-care workers were the prime target for harassment. Only 34.3% of the violent episodes were reported to a supervisor.

BioMed_Central_Tex_Template_v1.06 Exploration of Workplace violence experience among nurses at a selected University teaching Hospital in Rwanda

“…The ndings of the present study revealed that 44.6% of nurses were verbally abused. These results are low compared to the studies conducted in different countries, in Malawi (95%) (14), in the South of Ethiopia (90%) (2) in China (65%) (13) in Lebanon (62%) (16), in Gambia (59.8%) (12), in the Democratic Republic of Congo (59.0%) (15) and in Ghana (52.7%) (17).…”

“…Consequences of WPV the types of WPV, (6.7%) of nurses experienced physical violence. This rate is low compared to the studies conducted in some countries; in North West of Ethiopia (60.2%) (3), in Democratic Republic of Congo (53.6%)(15), in Texas State (USA) (49.8%)(8), in Malawi (22%)…”

Prevalence of workplace violence against healthcare workers: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…This is inconsistent with previous findings, which have found that men are more likely to encounter WPV than are women. [44][45][46] One possible explanation for our finding is the sample size differences between the two genders in this study, that is, there were fewer male than female participants. Some previous studies also did not report on gender; thus, gender differences may shift towards the null or become more pronounced.…”

The effect of aggression management training programmes for nursing staff and students working in an acute hospital setting. A narrative review of current literature

“…Perpetrators may be co-workers, managers, patients or visitors (3). The majority of acts of physical or verbal aggression originate from patients or visitors (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9). While most incidents of patient or visitor aggression (PVA) arise in mental health and accident and emergency departments (10,11), PVA also occurs in other clinical settings, such as medical and surgical departments (12,13).…”