Workplace violence: a survey on in-service nursing students at faculty of nursing, Thai Nguyen University of Medicine and Pharmacy in 2021

Abstract

Background: Nurses have to be in a direct and frequent interaction with patients, putting them at a high risk of being victimized by violence. As a result, workplace violence among this group is a critical issue. This study was conducted to describe situation of violence against nurses at workplace.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out from March to May, 2021. A sample of 201 RN-BNS nursing students, who were studying during the data collection period and gave their consent to participate in the study, was recruited and responded to the self-administered survey questionnaire.
Results: Among 201 respondents, 40 nurses (19.9%) reported to experience workplace violence before. The majority of victims are women (65.0%) aged 30 - 40 years (77.5%), mainly in inpatient and emergency departments (42.5% and 22.5%, respectively). Verbal abuse is the most common form of violence (92.5%) and alcohol is related to 60.0% of incidents. Perpetrators are patients and their relatives (47.5%). Most incidents occurred on weekdays (80.0%). After being attacked, 45.0% of nurses reported events, and 67.5% of cases were investigated and handled by hospital administration. Notably, 65.0% of nurses were satisfed with resolutions of the hospitals. The majority of nurses were reluctant to report the violence because of seeing neither beneft to report (25.0%) nor knowing to whom to report (20.0%).
Conclusions: Although workplace violence is prevalent, nurses are, in general, not satisfed with resolutions of the hospital administration. There are needs to improve prevention and management of violence against nurses, at both institutional and individual levels. Nurses should be encouraged to report the violence against them at work.