Study on mitigation of workplace violence in hospitals

Background: A workplace is any location, permanent or temporary, where an employee performs work-related duty. Workplace violence includes threats, beating, stabbing, shooting, psychological trauma, suicides, near suicides, and harassment of any kind. We can see slow changes in attitude of care providers when they encounter violent behavior and incidents. It is a world-wide issue. Of late, in developing countries where out of pocket payment mode is the main healthcare financing option for a family, the medical professionals are being demonized as professional pick-pocketers by few sections of the society. Hence, we explored to garner opinion of the employees regarding what constitutes violence in hospital setting and identified the factors among doctors, nurses, environmental duty workers, which are contributing toward work-place violence by patients and visitors. The aim was to improve the work environment for healthcare givers. Methods: Descriptive, cross-sectional study with a close-ended questionnaire under sections of physical environment factors, patient processes, equipment factors, and types of events taking place was administered. A sample size was 540, including 120 doctors, 240 nurses, and 180 environment health workers. About 127 patients were also interviewed to understand their opinion about event leading to attacks on doctors and nurses. Results: Patient attendants yelling at healthcare personnel, verbal threats of violence, and using offensive language against staff are the perceptions of hospital staff as incidents of workplace violence. Non-communicative staff, sudden death of patients, and non-satisfactory treatment lead to aggressive behavior as opined by patient families. Conclusion: In the process of providing safe work environment, each potential contributing factor needs to be addressed independently by administrators. The hospital has training programs to nurses on customer relationship management, interpersonal relations trainings.