Violence toward nurses at emergency rooms [ERs] of hospitals of Medical Universities in Tehran

ABSTRACT

ER nurses are at risk of violence due to the nature of their job and confrontation with a variety of patients as well as heavy workload. This can, in turn, leads to decreased quality of care. This descriptive study was conducted to identify prevalence and causes of violence toward nurses at ERs of hospitals affiliated with Medical Universities in Tehran. 100 nurses with at least 1 year continuous experience at ER were included in the study. Data were collected by a questionnaire. The questionnaire contained items including demographics, frequency and characteristics of violence at work [physical, verbal, nonverbal] and the factors involved. Content and test-retest as well as internal consistency [Cronbach's a] methods were used for Validity and reliability of the questionnaire respectively. Data were analyzed by version 16 of SPSS package. The most frequent type of violence was verbal [87%]. The frequencies of nonverbal and physical violence were 70% and 28% respectively. The most common type of verbal violence was yelling [84%] and, in physical violence, it was throwing objects [33%]. In nonverbal violence, insulting and threatening look [64%] and hitting on the table were very common. Verbal [48.2%] and nonverbal [65.8%] violence was committed mostly over the past month of the study and at nights. The subjects [38%] experienced verbal violence up to 5 times. The most frequent cause of violence [77%] was the lack of control over entrance of patients' relatives, chi test showed a significant relationship between physical violence and night shifts [P<0.001] and between female sex of nurses and physical violence [P<0.005]. ER nurses usually face with violence in a week and the most frequent types are verbal, nonverbal and physical, leading to decreased speed in delivering efficient care to patients and decreased quality of health care resulted from it