Low reporting of violence against health-care workers in India in spite of high prevalence

Abstract

Background: Violence against health-care workers has become a great issue in health-care organizations. This study was conceptualized with the aim to know the prevalence of violence and to identify gap between rate of reporting of an incident of violence at a tertiary care hospital in India. Methods: The study was descriptive and cross-sectional; a validated questionnaire was used as a tool. Reported incidents of violence against workers were collected. P value <0.05 was considered statistically significant in the analysis. A Z test for proportion at 95% confidence interval was applied to analyze the level of difference between prevalence, rate of reporting, and their level of awareness. Results: Of 394 respondents, 136(34.5%) workers had experienced workplace violence in the last 12 months. It was found that total 32 incidents of workplace violence were reported to the concerned authority. The reporting rate of violence is significantly low (23.5%), in spite of high prevalence (34.5%). Level of awareness regarding the reporting mechanism and regulations for the safeguard of health-care workers against workplace violence is only 24.6 %. Conclusion: This study concluded that the prevalence of violence among health-care workers is quite high, but the reporting rate is significantly low. The low rate of reporting is because of lack of awareness about the reporting mechanism of workplace violence. It is recommended that sensitizing workshops should be conducted to increase the level of awareness, which will result in reduction in the prevalence of violence and building a safe and secured workplace for health-care providers.

Frequency and barriers of reporting workplace violence in nurses: An online survey in China

“…The results state that the most important reason for not reporting was that nurses were unaware of how and what types of violence to report. These findings were parallel to a recent Indian study that the low rate of reporting is due to a lack of awareness about the reporting mechanism of WPV [ 22 ], but not to the aforementioned studies in Israel and Slovenia [ 14 , 15 ]. Kvas and Seljak found that the main reason for not reporting WPV was the belief that reporting would not change anything, followed by the fear of losing one’s job [ 15 ], while Natan et al.…”

“…Another common reason for under-reporting is the nurses’ belief that reporting would not lead to any positive changes, such as no preventative measures after the violent incident [ 12 , 15 , 18 , 20 ]. Lack of awareness of reporting methods and mechanisms may be a possible cause of under-reporting [ 12 , 22 ]. Other barriers to reporting include the lack of clear policies and procedures [ 18 ] and nurses’ perception of time-consuming reporting procedures [ 12 , 18 ].…”

Sensitivity towards patient's presence to avoid violent situations in hospitals: An observatory study

“…Apart from medical condition and influence of the medicine, the patient may also have medical history of violent behavior due to some other underlying causes. [ 1 ] Although many studies have been conducted in different parts of the world authenticating the prevalence of verbal and physical violence, only a handful of studies have been conducted to examine the reasons. The other important reason for violence could be lack of interpersonal communication skills among employees of hospitals.…”

“…Any act of threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation can be considered as violence.” But violence against doctors who are considered as “Gods” at one point of time are now victims of fear today. [ 1 ] Reviewing the violent situations in the past, we find violence primarily triggers when the doctor commits an error or does not pay proper attention to the patient. If there is a violation of medical ethics in the first instance, there is a violation of human ethics in the second case.…”

“…Jennifer Fong Ha in her research identifies health literacy, unrealistic expectations from patients, capitalistic approach observed among some doctors are some of the reasons that are listed by researchers in the field. [ 5 1 ] In addition to the above reasons the other reason that could lead to violence could be poor interpersonal communication skills by the medical professionals. The process gets complicated when the interaction is with the person or group of people who is in a traumatic state.…”