Sağlık ve Hemşirelik Yönetimi Dergisi (Dec 2014)

The Violence Applied to Health Personnel Working at Hospitals by Patients/ Their Families: The Causes and Factors Regarding Violence

  • Havva Öztürk,
  • Elif Babacan

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5222/shyd.2014.070
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 1, no. 2
pp. 70 – 80

Abstract

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OBJECTIVE: It was to determine violence, its reasons and factors used against the health personnel in hospitals, by patients/their families. METHODS: The study was conducted with 770 patients who were admitted in a single day to 12 hospitals of the Ministry of Health in Trabzonas well as 798 health personnel working at those institutions. The data were collected between March 7th and 28th, 2012 by questionnaires developed separately for the patients and health personnel which composed of questions regarding the demographic characteristics of both groups and the violence used against the health personnel and its reasons. RESULTS: Thirty five percent of the patients and 74% of the health personnel had witnessed the use of violence against the health personnel at the hospitals and both groups stated that violence was mostly verbal. Patients/their families holding a university degree who were admitted to the outclinic unit believed that mostly the doctors and medical secretaries deserved violence (p<0.05). In addition, 52% of the patients and 68% of the health personnel noted that the violence originates from the health system. On the other hand, 36% of the patients and 58% of the health personnel stated that it stems from the patients/their families while 30% of the patients and 15% of the health personnel stated the health personnel as the reason. In both groups, system-induced violence was correlated with primarily the prolongation of waiting time for examination/outpatient; patients/their families-induced violence was correlated with the impatient and unsympathetic behaviours of patients/their families; and health personnel-induced violence was correlated with the insensitive and indifferent behaviours of the health staff or their lack of attention to the patients. CONCLUSION: It was determined that patients/their families use violence against the health personnel, which is mostly verbal and most of these events occur due to the insufficiencies of the health systems.

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