High Incidence of Workplace Violence in MetropolitanEmergency Departments of Thailand; a Cross SectionalStudy

Violence against healthcare workers mostly occurs in emergency departments and is a seriousglobal public health issue. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of violence directed towards emergencydepartment healthcare personnel and to ascertain the factors that might be correlated with it.

In thiscross-sectional study, an anonymous questionnaire was used to gather data from healthcare personnel workingin the emergency departments under the direction of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration between 1 Au-gust 2019 and 30 November 2019, regarding the experience of violence during the previous year.

A totalof 258 (87.5%) responses were received from 295 personnel. The results showed that 88.4% (228 personnel) hadexperienced violence during the past year, of these, 37.6% involved physical abuse that caused minor injuries.Employees with shorter tenures, nurses, and those working in tertiary academic emergency departments in thecentral business district were found to have increased likelihood of confronting violence. Measures taken toprevent violence had a limited impact on the occurrence rate. The most common impact on employees after ex-periencing violence was discouragement in their jobs (75.1 %). The key factors that promoted cases of violencewere the consumption of alcohol or drugs (81.3%) and long waiting times (73.6%). Most violence tended tooccur during non-office hours (95.4%). One-third of emergency healthcare personnel reported facing violenceduring their work.

Emergency healthcare personnel in metropolitan of Thailand had a high rate ofexperiencing violence in the previous year. Younger age, lower work experience, being a nurse, and working inthe urban academic or tertiary emergency department increased the likelihood of being a victim of workplaceviolence