Prevalence and forms of workplace violence against nurses

Abstract

IntroductionNurses are one of the professional groups highly vulnerable to workplace violence. This study was conducted to assess the prevalence and form of workplace violence against Professional Nurses. MethodsInstitution-based cross-sectional study design was used to study 385 nurses working at the University of Gondar hospital, from July to October 2019. A stratified random sampling technique was used. The data were entered into Epi info version 7.2.1 and analyzed by using SPSS version 23. Descriptive statistics were used to present the finding. ResultThree hundred eighty-five participants were involved in this study. Nearly half of the participants 198 (51.4 %) had been the victim of one form of violence or another in their workplace. Most of the victims of workplace violence, 118(59.6 %), have experienced verbal violence and around 23.2 % reported physical violence in the last 12 months. ConclusionNurses working at University of Gondar Hospital are at risk of workplace violence. Most violent incidents were verbal and a significant number of nurses have faced physical violence. The most common perpetrators of violence were relatives of patients and a significant share of violence occurred by patients themselves. Most participants were dissatisfied with the way the administrators dealt with the violent incident.