Evaluation of violence of patients and their families against emergency nurses of Imam Reza Central Hospital in Mashhad

Patients and their families’ violence is mostly among the most dangerous occupational hazards، which has some consequences for the medical staff and influences quality of patients’ care and satisfaction directly or indirectly. The present study is done with the aim of determining the level of patients and their families’ violence against nurses. This cross - sectional study was performed through census method on 68 nursing staff working in Central Emergency of Imam Reza hospital in Mashhad in 2012. Data collection tools included a standard questionnaire designed by the collaboration of International Labor Organization، World Health Organization، International Society of Nurses and International Association of Public Service; the questionnaire has been used after its adjustment with the social and environmental criteria. Data analysis was done through SPSS17 software and by using descriptive statistics and Pearson and Spearman correlation test. All the nurses were exposed to verbal violence at least once during the last year (14. 7 percent once، 16. 2 percent always and 69. 1 percent sometimes) and 22. 1 percent of them had experienced physical violence during the last year. The most common cause of violence against nurses was patients'' relatives and most of the nurses have not taken any action against them. More than half of the nurses stated that they do not report the incident since they think it’s useless to report or talk about it; they also stated that there was no specific action taken by the superior for identifying the cause of violence in the case of their reporting. In addition tracking the reported violence has most often been unsatisfactory. Despite high prevalence of violence against nurses of emergency departments، lack of reporting mechanisms and tracking violence and nurses’ avoidance of reporting violence، hidden aspects of this phenomenon are more than the obvious ones. Since most of the people working in emergency departments have reported that violence can’t be prevented، it is necessary to prevent destructive effects of this phenomenon influencing the quality of emergency cares by developing educational programs aimed at empowering nurses in managing violent incidents.