An Exploration of Occupational Violence among Emergency Medical Staff of a Major Medical University; 2020

Nowadays, due to the increase in violence against emergency medical technicians and the adverse effects of these behaviors on physical and mental health, as well as employee productivity, it seems necessary to investigate occupational violence and try to reduce it. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the level of violence in the workplace against emergency medical technicians of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences and related factors.

Methods and Materials:

 This was a cross-sectional study performed on 204 emergency medical technicians of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. The sampling method was census. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and statistical tests including chi-square, t-test and analysis of variance using Stata software.

The response rate was 19.2%. Findings showed that 78.92% of the subjects in the past year have experienced at least one type of violence. The most common type of violence was verbal violence. 70.10% of the violence occurred at the scene of accident and the patient's family was the main group of perpetrators of violence (59.31%). There was a significant relationship between the rate of physical violence with the rate of verbal and cultural violence (P-value≤0.05).

Emergency medical technicians are always exposed to different types of occupational violence, so training in violence management and communication skills, as well as follow-up of violence by the relevant authorities, is recommended to reduce the violence.KEYWORDS: occupational violence; emergency medical staff; paramedics