Assessment of workplace violence and its associated risk factors among healthcare workers in a tertiary Institution South of Nigeria

Abstract

Background: The threat or act of physical attacks, verbal abuse, and sexual assault committed against employees within or around a workplace is a growing public health threat that potentially jeopardizes their health, safety, and well-being with its attendant negative consequences for quality service delivery. The aim of the study is to assess of workplace violence and its associated risk factors among health care workers in a tertiary Institution in south of Nigeria.
Methods: This cross-sectional study conducted in October 2024 involved the use of self-administered questionnaire. A simple random method was utilized to proportionately recruit stratified categorized respondents. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The significance level was set at p<0.05 and the confidence interval at 95%.
Results: The prevalence of workplace violence was found to be 62%, majority of the respondents 54.6% had experienced verbal abuse, followed by physical assault 30.63% and sexual violence 5.9% respectively. Female were significantly more likely to experience workplace violence (p≤0.05). The majority of the perpetrators of work place violence 61.4% were patients' relatives followed by patients 24.1%.     Majority of the assault 60.2% occurred within 07:00 -13:00 hrs. medical staff not doing enough to help their patients who are in pain or not getting better and patients not receiving timely care, 53.87% and 47.23% respectively were the perceived environmental reasons for workplace violence
Conclusions: There is a high prevalence of work place violence with verbal abuse and physical attacks being the more frequent forms of violence targeted usually against female medical staff at Rivers State University Teaching Hospital. Staff should be trained on communication skills to fill perception gaps of care givers and also encouraged to report workplace violence.