Psychophysiological Impacts of Workplace Violence in the Health-sector

Abstract

Background: Workplace violence is type of violent act directed towards person on duty or any physical assault, threatening behavior, verbal abuse occurring in the work setting or psychological violence, abuse, bullying/mobbing, harassment either racial or sexual at workplace as defined by the national institute for occupational safety and health (NIOSH). Workplace violence is now very common in healthcare sectors and hospitals in which psychiatric wards, emergency departments and consultant clinics are more at risk.

Objective: The objective of the study is to evaluate the psychophysiological factors among the participants suffering from the workplace violence in the health sector and to distinguish the risk factors of workplace violence among male and females between the 19 to 50 age group.

Methodology: The universe of this gender-based study is based on the age group of 19 to 50 or above and conducted as an interview-based study of 100 participants using the questionnaire launched by WHO divided equally in males and females from different hospitals in Karachi. The data was analyzed on the excel spreadsheet with the possible coding. Results were drawn with the help of excel. All the charts and tables were made manually with the help of MS Excel.

Results: The study reported that the risk factors of workplace violence are seen more in males than females and the ratio of both physical and verbal abuse is 3:2 in both genders. It has been reported from the traumatic scale evaluated from Sadaf Stress Scale that females show more normal results than male whereas mild and moderate traumatic stress is more found in males than females. The study reported that due to the negative consequences most of the cases are underreported in which sexual harassment is common in nurses among healthcare workers.

Conclusion: The study concluded that workplace violence is common in every sector whereas health sectors are more at risk than any other sector especially emergency departments due to which usually workers suffer from the psychological stress, anxiety and depression as well as physical stress.