The Prevalence of Workplace Violence Against Iranian Nurses: A Systematic Review and Meta - Analysis

Workplace violence is one of the major health concerns and managerial issues that, by creating insecurity at the workplace, would affect the performance of the health personnel and their professional relations. Due to the close contact with patients and their companions, nurses are more exposed to workplace violence. The aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence of workplace violence against Iranian nurses.
In the present systematic review and meta - analysis, 22 Iranian articles, which were published in Farsi and English until February 2017, were selected. National and international databases were searched using “nursing”, “aggression”, “physical violence”, “verbal violence”, and “workplace violence” keywords and their possible combinations. Data were analyzed using meta - analysis and random effects model. Heterogeneity between the studies was evaluated using I2 test.
Analyzing the 22 selected articles with a sample size of 5639 showed that the general prevalence of verbal violence was 74% (95% CI: 66 - 83) and of physical violence was 28% (95% CI: 21 - 35). The prevalence of unreported workplace violence by the nurses was 48% (95% CI: 28 - 68).
The prevalence of verbal and physical violence against nurses is high and about half of the nurses do not report workplace violence to the hospitals’ authorities.