ABSTRACT
Background: Security guards/protective inspectors are a group of professional gray collar workers responsible for safety and security of general public. In healthcare institutions, they play a pivotal role in streamlining the movement of patients, healthcare workers as well as other people as well as keeping a check upon the law-breaking activities within the premises. These professionals are constantly overburdened with responsibility and many of them are under the verge of physical, mental, and emotional crisis leading to various health issues. Aim and Objective: To assess the influence of changing work patterns on the overall physical health of security guards working in the hospital. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in a tertiary care hospital in the Eastern part of Odisha involving all the security personnel currently working. Universal sampling was opted and 465 personnel participated in this study. Results: Of the total, 213 (45.8%) were between 30 and 40 years of age and 398 (85.5%) were male. 179 (38.4%) were overweight and 52.2% had a waist-hip ratio above normal range for their gender. Prevalence of anemia and Conjunctival xerosis was significantly higher among night shift workers with P < 0.001 whereas hypertension (P = 0.08) and rheumatoid arthritis (P = 0.006) was significantly higher among morning shift workers. Conclusion: Being a distinctive member of the hospital, it is high time that regular health check-ups and social security measures should be made available to them in order to provide quality life which will in turn ensure better hospital safety and security.
ABSTRACT
Aims: There is abundant evidence to suggest that health care staff are increasingly being exposed to violent incidents at their workplace. The purpose of our study was to identify the role of crowding in producing violence that occurs in emergency department as well as to outline the factors that affect the types of violence. Study Design: In this prospective study we collected incidents of violence against emergency staff by patients or their relatives. A survey with 20 questions about the event was completed by emergency staff just after the event. Also information about crowding at that time was recorded as well as the area of the event. Statistical analysis was done with SPSS 16.0. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Emergency Medicine, Marmara University Pendik Training and Research Hospital, Between April 1 and June 1, 2012. Methodology: A total of 116 acts of violence were reported during the 61 days of this study. 79 of 116 cases (68.1%) were verbal, 16 (13.8%) physical, and 21 (18.1%) were both verbal and physical. The information about each event was entered into a database and pooled for analysis. Results: The most common victims of violence were physicians (38.8%) and security personnel (31.0%). The presence of security personnel in the environment increases the risk of physical violence (P=.017). The average total number of patients waiting for examination or results of examinations was 24.9 ± 1.4 (95% CI, 22.3 – 27.5). It was observed that the violence increased when the number of people was close to this number and reduced when the crowding increased above this average. Conclusions: The existence of security personnel alone is not sufficient to prevent violence; new steps should be taken to prevent the entrance of the patients’ relatives to inside of the treatment areas of emergency departments.