Prevalence of Workplace Violence of Emergency Medical Staff and Relevant Factors in Chaharmahal-Bakhtyari Province in 2020

In the past years, workplace violence in the area of health has been reported with an upward trend. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of workplace violence of emergency medical staff and relevant factors in Chaharmahal-Bakhtyari province in 2020.

 This descriptive, analytical, and cross-sectional research was conducted in the emergency medical centers of Chaharmahal-Bakhtyari province in 2020. Census method was applied and 125 staff of these centers was selected considering the limited research population. Data were collected through a self-report questionnaire. In addition, data analysis was performed using Chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests in SPSS version 19.

In this research, 88% of the participants had an experience of workplace violence in the past year. 36% of which has been physical, 54.4% of them were verbal violence and 9.6% of them were cultural violence. In addition, 62.4% (N=78) of the staff has reported to be the companions of patients as the source of violence. Moreover, 84% of the participants believed that there is no proper procedure to report workplace violence. There were no significant relationships between workplace violence in the emergency medical staff and variables of age, marital status and work experience.

Emergency medical personnel are exposed to high levels of violence. Special training should be provided to emergency medical personnel in controlling violence and educating the media to improve public health and reduce job burnout.