Workplace Violence on Physicians and Nurses: Causes and Pre-Violence Suggested Solutions

Abstract

One of the important occupational health problems is violence. Violence is more prevalent among physicians and nurses in psychiatric and emergency departments in Jordan public hospitals. Causes of this phenomenon are associated with different causatives such as hospitals facilities (including beds, medication, oxygen… etc.), hospital staff, ministry of health and patients with their families. In this work violence on physicians and nurses in Jordan hospitals is analyzed based on the causes of violence. Solutions are searched upon the causatives of these actions not only on education, training and toughening punishment. Results of this work showed that 58.3 % of violence is due to hospital facilities and staff, 25% government actions and 17.7 % due to patients and their families. This work suggests investing more in healthcare institutions, provide more skilled staff, introduce a management procedure following incidents, preventive policies and improving health institutional facilities by applying programs for medicine inventory control, human factors and management techniques.