Perception of Patient's Companions about Nature of Workplace Violence against Nurses in Tabriz Medical Educational Centers

Nurses consider patients’ companions as a main resource of workplace violence against nurses. There are no previous researches investigated the nature of workplace violence against nurses from the viewpoints of patients’ companions. So, the aim of present study was to investigate the perception of patients’ companions about workplace violence against nurses.

In this descriptive study, 376 companions in Tabriz medical educational centers were participated by simple randomized method. The data gathering instrument was a modified questionnaire of World Health Organization. Data analysis was performed using SPSS software (version 13) and descriptive statistics.

Companions reported 149 occurrences of workplace violence in verbal (25%), cultural (5.9%), sexual (4.5%) and physical (4.3%) types. About verbal, sexual and physical violence the companions were the most representative of workplace violence. Inappropriate behavior of personnel, worries about health and long prospect for receiving health care were mains. The main reactions of nurses to workplace violence included informing guard, doing nothing and invited the offender to be calm.

Results of this research confirmed high prevalence of workplace violence against nurses and also in many cases, such as prevalence of violence, offenders, types of violence and reactions of nurses the perception of companions were similar to the viewpoint of nurses that reported in previous researches. This project funded by research deputy of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences and approved by Regional Ethics Committee. The findings have no interest of conflict with authors.