Exposure of Nurses with Physical Violence in Academic Hospitals of ‎Baqiyatallah Medical University

Introduction. Workplace violence has become a global alarming phenomenon and its ‎expression in physical assault, homicide, verbal abuse, bullying mobbing and sexual and racial ‎harassment. Health sector personnel are particularly at risk of violence in their workplace whose ‎precise dimensions of the problem have not been found. The aim of this study was assessment of ‎exposure or non exposure of‏ ‏nurses with Physical violence during last year and role of some ‎related factors.‎ Material and Methods. Study population consisted of nurses with at least one year of ‎employment employed in academic hospitals of Baqiyatallah medical university‏ ‏which 450 ‎nurses were selected by simple randomized sampling. Data collection was carried out with a ‎standard questionnaire derived from cooperation of WHO, ILO and other authoritative centers. ‎Questionnaires were given and taken by a general physician. Period of data collection was six ‎months (October 2006 to February 2007) Data analysis was carried out by Chi square method.‎ Results. Of total 450 nurses, 96(21.3%) had at least one experience of physical violence in their ‎workplace. Exposures were higher in persons more than 35 years old, in nurses with longer time ‎of experience in men and in registered nurses. Most of violent persons were relatives and patient ‎respectively. In most cases there were no reporting and most of reports had not any results.‎ Discussion. In this survey the prevalence of workplace violence was not higher than some ‎similar studies (22% to 38.9%). But this result should be interpreted carefully because of nurses’ ‎hesitation, recall bias etc. Furthermore explaining of preventive programs, good management ‎and appropriate reporting should be considered.‎