The Experiences of Workplace Violence toward Nurses in Hospitals in Jeju Province, South Korea

Park, Eunok; Kim, Jeong Hee

Abstract

PURPOSE
This study was to investigate the prevalence & types of workplace violence toward nurses in hospitals, and to understand nurse's coping response, cause of violence and prevention strategy.
METHODS
The data were collected from 254 nurses working in 9 hospitals in Jeju Province by the self-report from June to August 2010.
RESULTS
The respondents experienced unpleasant or insulting words (89.8%), verbal threat (38.2%), physical threat (67.7%), physical injury (32.7%), severe physical injury (2.8%), and sexual harassment (26.4%) during the last one year. The frequent offenders were patients, patients' family and physicians in order. The causes of violence which nurses perceived were personality of offenders (76.4%), lack of assessment of aggressive patients or care givers (42.1%), and lack of explanation to patients or caregivers (33.5%). They reported that coping strategies for workplace violence were 'established reporting system (63.4%)', 'building a cooperative circumstances within team members (58.3%)', and 'formulation of hospital policies for violence prevention and coping (54.3%)'.
CONCLUSION
These findings showed nurses are at considerable risk for workplace violence, and they experience various types of violence from patients, caregivers, and physicians. We suggest that hospitals formulate appropriate policies, guidelines and programs to prevent and cope with workplace violence in hospitals.