The prevalence of workplace violence and related factors in the emergency department staff of Iran: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Abstract Background To determine the prevalence of workplace violence and related factors in the emergency department staff of Kosar Hospital of Semnan City (Iran) during 2020–2021. This cross sectional study was performed on 202 medical personnel working in the emergency department of Kosar Hospital in Semnan City. Sampling was done by census. Two questionnaires were used to collect data. The first included demographic characteristics and the second was workplace violence questionnaire in the health sector which was evaluated in term of validity and reliability. Finally, data was analyzed using SPSS26 and P value < 0.05 was considered as a significant level. Results Content validity index (CVI) was obtained more than 0.79 and content validity ratio (CVR) was more than 0.70 for all questions. Also, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient with 0.89 confirmed the reliability. The mean (S.D) age of participants was 28.12 (6.72) years and 53.5% (108) were male. The overall prevalence of workplace violence was 88.1%. The prevalence of verbal, physical, sexual and racial violence was 98.9, 25.2, 2, and 2.5%, respectively. There was a statistically significant relationship between occupational row and shift work and with workplace violence (P value < 0.05). However, there was no statistically significant relationship between age, gender, education, work experience, work experience in the emergency, employment status, and number of patients cared for shift with the occurrence of violence (P value > 0.05). Conclusions The prevalence of workplace violence in emergency department personnel is high, which can lead to many physical and psychological complications, so the design and implementation of prevention programs in these employees seems necessary.