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

Abstract

Workplace violence is one of the main risk factors in the professional world. Healthcare workers are at higher risk whencompared to other sectors. Our study aimed to characterize physical and verbal violence in a public hospital and to define occupationalhealth prevention and surveillance strategies. Single center observational cross-sectional study, carried amongst healthcare workers in a public hospital inLisbon. A qualitative survey was carried out through six in-depth interviews. A quantitative survey was carried through questionnairesdelivered to 32 workers. A significance level of 5% was accepted in the assessment of statistical differences. The Mann-Whitney testand the Fisher's exact test were used to calculate p values. The main results are: (1) 41 violence incidents were reported in the quantitative phase; (2) 5/21 [23.81%] victims notifiedthe 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 itis possible to minimize workplace violence. Workplace violence is favored by unrestricted access to working areas, absence of security guards and police officersor scarce intervention. The low notification rate contributes to organizational lack of action. The state of hypervigilance reported in ourstudy reflects the negative effects of threatening occupational stressors on mental health. Our results show that workplace violence is a relevant risk factor that significantly impacts workers' health in a noxiousmanner, deserving a tailored occupational health approach whose priority areas and strategies have been determined.