From Patient Perspective: Violence Against Physician Patients’ views on violence to physicians

Abstract

Objective: Violence has recently increased in almost every facet of life, but more noticeable in workplaces. Doctors and other healthcare professionals are among the most frequently targeted and victimized professionals. Healthcare professionals are in danger due to multiple types of violence that can occur in healthcare institutions, resulting from patients, patients' family, or anyone else; threatening conduct, verbal threats, financial abuse, physical abuse, and sexual assault. The current study aims to understand how patients perceive the violence encountered by healthcare workers and to clarify whether there was or wasn't a connection between the participants' ideas and their levels of aggression. Finding out what the patients believe about violence against doctors is important to create action plans to implement these attitudes in a non-violent way.

Method: The volunteers who applied to Family Health Centers by any reason were required to complete a survey that asked them questions about their demographics, the subject, and the State Trait Anger Scale (STAS). According to the research hypothesis and analysis method, the sample size analysis in the G*Power program determined that a total of 305 participants were the target population for the study.

Results: This study was conducted with  351 women, 456 participants in total. To “approve of violence” men were 1.41 times more likely than women ,  aged “≤31.5 years” were 2.227 times more likely than those aged “>31.5 years.” and the unemployed were 2.74 times more likely than the employed.  The results of the “Phi and Cramer’s V” Test, which indicate the level of correlation between two variables, revealed a significant correlation between “Attributing Violence to Illness” and “Recourse to Violence in Healthcare” (Phi = 0.163, p < 0.001).

Conclusion: The results of our study extensively reveal groups with potential risks and associated parameters, and thus can shed light on measures and counselling services to be taken to address the issue.