Assessment of Workplace Violence Against Nurses Working in Emergency Department of Referral Public Hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
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Date
2017-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Background; the emergency department (ED) is the gate to all critical ill and other hospital
wards. Hence ED is one of the most dangerous work settings in health care for nurses because of
violence from patients and/or visitors. Many studies in different societies particularly in
developed countries have been conducted regarding WPV against nurses especially in EDs and
the findings have proved very helpful in improving nurses’ safety in EDs.
Objective This study aimed to find the frequency and nature of physical and verbal WPV against
nurses working in EDs.
Methods and materials; an institution based cross-sectional study was carried out using a
sample size of 228 bachelor’s degree nurses working in 10 EDs of public referral Hospitals of
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The data were collected through an adopted version the original
questionnaire that was developed by the joint program of International Labor Office (ILO),
International Council of Nurses (ICN), World Health Organization (WHO), and Public Services
International (PSI).The gathered data was analyzed using epi info version 7.2.1.0 by descriptive
statistics.
Results Around 25% reported physical violence and verbal violence was much more frequent
(59.3%) than physical violence in the last 12 months. Patients’ relatives were the most common
source of both kinds of violence, physical abuse (54.91%) and verbal abuse (56.19%). More than
(82%) of victims of violence were very dissatisfied with the way the administrators dealt with
violent incidents. 98.52% nurses indicated that there was no procedure to report violent
incidents in the workplace. Only 29.56 % of all the participants had been encouraged to report
violence. (52.94%) physically and (9.10%) verbally abused participants had been “extremely
bothered by repeated disturbing memories, thoughts, or images of the attack”. Strengthening
security and providing training were some of the important measures indicated by participants
for decreasing violence in the workplace
Conclusion and Recommendations; Nurses working in Emergency Department of Addis
Ababa are at risk of workplace violence. Most participants indicated that they are worried in
workplace related to violent incidents. Most participants were very dissatisfied with the way the
administrators dealt with violent incidents. In the majority of cases no specific policy on
workplace violence is in operation. Developing protective violence guidelines, establishing a
training program for nurses and Institute reliable policies are paramount to tackle the problem of
workplace violence.
Keywords; ED nurses, Workplace Violence, Prevalence, Outcome, Reporting
Description
Keywords
ED nurses; Workplace Violence; Prevalence; Outcome; Reporting