Evaluation of Physical Violence against Emergency Personnel at Work in 2013

Due to the special nature of their job and exposure to stressful situations, medical emergency personnel are more prone to physical violence compared to other medical staff. This study aimed to investigate physical violence against emergency personnel in the north of Khuzestan province.
This cross–sectional, descriptive study was conducted on 144 emergency personnel in north of Khuzestan province through census in 2013. The data were gathered using a questionnaire which consisted of three parts, namely physical violence experience, response to violence, and its causes. Then, the data were entered into the SPSS statistical software (v. 18) and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics.
The results showed that about 34.7% of the staff had experienced physical violence, 85.7% of which had occurred at the accident scene and 41.7% had been committed by the patients. A significant relationship was found between the violence performed against the emergency personnel and work shifts (P=0.01) and the location of emergency missions (P=0.001). Moreover, from the personnel’s point of view, the most common cause of violence was low public awareness towards the medical staff’s duties and the most common response to violence was inviting the offender to relax.
Considering the high rate of physical violence against the emergency staff, retraining programs are recommended to be held in order to train the necessary actions to minimize workplace violence and maximize the personnel’s effective performance when exposed to violence.