Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify risk factors of physical violence in Chinese township hospitals.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was used in a sample of 442 general practitioners and 398 general nurses from 90 township hospitals located in Heilongjiang province, China (response rate = 84.8%).ResultsA total of 106 of the 840 (12.6%) respondents reported being physically attacked in their workplace in the previous 12 months. Most perpetrators were the patients’ relatives (62.3%), followed by the patient (22.6%); 73.6% of perpetrators were aged between 20 and 40 years. Of the physical violence incidents, about 56.6% (n = 60) resulted in a physical injury, and 45.4% of respondents took two or three days of sick leave. Reporting workplace violence in hospitals to superiors or authorities was low (9.4%). Most respondents (62.8%) did not receive training on how to avoid workplace violence. Logistic regression analyses indicated that general nurses, aged 35 years or younger, and with a higher-level professional title were more likely to experience physical violence. Healthcare workers with direct physical contact (washing, turning, lifting) with patients had a higher risk of physical violence compared to other health care workers. Procedures for reporting workplace violence were a protective factor for physical violence; when in place, reporting after psychological violence (verbal abuse, bullying/mobbing, harassment, and threats) was more protective than waiting until an instance of physical violence (beating, kicking, slapping, stabbing, etc.).ConclusionsPhysical violence in Chinese township hospitals is an occupational hazard of rural public health concern. Policies, procedures, and intervention strategies should be undertaken to manage this issue.
Highlights
Workplace violence (WPV) toward healthcare workers in the healthcare sector has been recognized as a global problem and major public health concern[1,2,3]
Healthcare workers with direct physical contact with patients had a higher risk of physical violence compared to other health care workers
Procedures for reporting workplace violence were a protective factor for physical violence; when in place, reporting after psychological violence was more protective than waiting until an instance of physical violence
Summary
Workplace violence (WPV) toward healthcare workers in the healthcare sector has been recognized as a global problem and major public health concern[1,2,3]. Horizontal comparison is difficult when the definition of WPV was not fixed, violent workplace incidents that respondents needed to recall occurred at an earlier time, and the questionnaires used by different researchers varied Even when these points were not considered, literature and studies from various countries showed that the percentage of healthcare workers suffering WPV was as high as 50% to 88%[7,8,9,10,11]. On October 25, 2013, three doctors from Wenling People’s Hospital in Zhejiang province were stabbed by a patient with a knife, resulting in one death and two injuries, which shocked the nation[15] This is just one of many serious violent incidents in Chinese hospitals. Non-physical violence can be just as detrimental as physical violence and is a part of the whole picture of workplace violence, non-physical violence was not included in this study after taking into account China’s current situation on physical violence
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