Prevalence and forms of violence against health care professionals in a South-Western city, Nigeria

Abstract

Workplace violence affects every professional group including the health sector. All categories of healthcare workers are at risk of violence though at different degrees with the nurses having up to three times higher than others. Workplace violence can be physical, sexual or psychological in nature and can be actual or threatened. This study investigated the prevalence and forms of violence among health professionals in two hospitals in Southwestern Nigeria. A cross-sectional survey design was adopted to collect data among 242 health care professionals in Osogbo using a self-administered semi-structured questionnaire. Data were analysed with SPSS version 16 and level of significance was set at p < 0.05.The mean age of the respondents was 39.2 ± years. The results revealed that the highest prevalence was among the nurses (77, 53.5%) followed by the doctors/dentists (31, 21.5%). However 31 out of 54 doctors (57.4%); 77 out of 130 nurses (59.2%) and 36 out of 58 other professionals have experienced violence in the last one year. The perpetrators were usually the patient (74, 46.1%) or their relatives (79,49.5%). The commonest forms of assault were verbal (93, 64.6%) and physical abuse (51, 35.4%). The violent acts mostly occurred at the accidents and emergency (44, 30.6%) and the out-patient clinics (29, 20.1%). There is a need for strict policies in hospitals to protect the workers from violence.