Workplace violence against nurses from the viewpoint of patients

Workplace violence against nurses is a complex phenomenon and many factors are involved in its creation. Also, until now only the viewpoint of nurses about this phenomenon were investigated. So, the aim of present study was to investigate the perception of patients about the nature of workplace violence against nurses in Tabriz educational centers. In this descriptive study 384 patients who hospitalized in medical –surgical wards of Tabriz educational centers in 2012 were participated using simple random method. The data gathering instrument was a modified version of workplace violence in health sectors designed by World Health Organization. Data analysis was performed using SPSS (version 13) software. Patients reported 204 occurrence of workplace violence during their hospitalization in verbal (66.2%), cultural (19.1%), sexual (9.8%) and physical (4.9%) types. Patients and their companions were the most actors of workplace violence. Most frequent reason for workplace violence was inappropriate encounter of health care personnel with patients and their companions and most frequent reaction of nurses to workplace violence was doing nothing. Results of this research confirm the high prevalence of workplace violence against Iranian nurses. It seems that maybe by enhancing communication skills of nurses, education of patients and stiff follow up of violence instances the high prevalence of workplace violence against nurses may decrease.