VIOLENCE AGAINST HEALTH CARE WORKERS: A RETROSPECTIVE STUDY

Abstract

As violence in society is increasing in recent years it is an important problem in healthinstitutions as well. Changes in health systems, rising socio-economic levels of people, and changes inexpectations for health services led to violence in health sector. This study was conducted for thepurpose of examining work place violence against health care workers. This retrospective-descriptivestudy covers a period from December 2011 to April 2015. 136 notifications about work place violencereported by health workers to quality management unit of a hospital were taken into account.Research findings show that 43,4% of the victims of violence was physicians, 37,5% was nurses andhealth officers and 19,1% were from other professions. 63,2% of the health workers were women,36,8% were male. Additionally health workers were exposed to violence by 47.3% of the patients and52.7% by their relatives. 69.7% of the people applied violence were male and 30.3% were female.63,2% of the health workers exposed to violence were women, 36,8% were male. According to ourresults male physicians were exposed to workplace violence more than other workers and this wassignificant ( ? 2=31,634, p<0,01).When place of violence occurred was investigated it was seen that while most of physicianswere exposed to violence in polyclinics, nurses were exposed to violence in inpatient services(?2=18,231, p<0,01). Male physicians were exposed to verbal violence most. On the other handnurses experienced both verbal and physical violence (?2=34,639,p<0.01). Patient relatives appliedverbal violence and the others applied physical violence (?2=22,073, p<0,01).As a result, in order to reduce / prevent violence in work place , it is considered necessary toincrease consciousness of patients and their relatives, to increase security measures in healthinstitutions, to provide health workers to report work place violence to management , to improvephysical working conditions and increase legal sanctions in terms of providing employee safety.