Workplace Violence against Nurses at Public Hospitals in Sana'a City-Yemen

Abstract

Background: Workplace violence is a concerning issue. Workplace violence is a serious phenomenon involving the health care settings, and presents challenges to management. Literature indicates that the majority of nurses experience some form of violence during their working lives. Aim: to identify the workplace violence against nurses working at public hospitals in Sana'a City-Yemen. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out from March to April 2017 among nurses in public hospitals of Sana, a city, -Yemen. A predesigned Arabic self-administered questionnaire was utilized. 261 Yemenis nurses were selected for this study by simple random sampling. The nurses were taken as simple random sampling from 4 major public hospitals. Results: Their age ranged between 20 and 54 years. History of violence during working hours was reported among the majority of nurses (56%). More than half of violent insults (57.5%) took place during daytime shifts. In most of the cases (83.5%), was psychological violence. According to nurses` perspectives, the commonest reported reason for the violence was no apparent cause (29.5%), followed by the shortage in the number of staffs (24%). More than half (57%) of the nurses reported that they had more than one symptoms and feeling during exposed to violence. (95.4 %) of nurses felt that the workplace violence threats nurses’ dignity followed by (89.7%) were agreed that the violence has psychosocial consequences that threaten nurses’ entity. Conclusion: workplace violence is a significant problem facing a considerable proportion of nurses in public hospitals in Sana'a city-Yemen.