Violence against Health-Care Workers in Governmental Health Facilities in Arar City, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Background. Violence against health-care workers (HCWs) showed increasing worldwide concern. No previous studies addressed violence against HCWs in the Northern region, Saudi Arabia. Objectives. To determine the prevalence of violence against HCWs in public hospitals and primary health-care centers in Arar city, KSA, and to identify its associated factors. Methods. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 352 HCWs in the Ministry of Health (MOH) facilities in Arar city from 1st October to 31st December 2018. Consented HCWs completed a structured self-administered questionnaire which was modified from the WHO questionnaire for violence. Results. Out of 352 health-care workers, 171 (48.6%) reported exposure to violence during work in the past year. The verbal violence was the most common form experienced (83%). Physicians were the main exposed group (59%). Being non-Saudi HCWs, older with longer duration of experience, working in hospitals, working in the emergency room, and working in evening or night shifts were significantly associated with more exposure to violence. The unmet demand for the patient and deficient staff number were the leading reasons for aggression. Only 16.4% of assaulted HCWs reported the violent acts to the higher health affairs authority with the most frequent reasons for nonreporting were their perception that it was useless and their fear of negative consequences. Conclusions. Violence against HCWs in Arar city, KSA, is a prevalent problem. Improving health security system and increasing staffing and their training on proper dealing with violence are highly recommended. Also, enforcing rules and regulations is an important demand to control and prevent violence against HCWs.

Workplace Violence Among Healthcare Workers in a Tertiary Medical City in Riyadh: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…This prevalence is higher than that found in previous similar studies conducted in Arar City and Abha City. In those studies, the prevalence of workplace violence among healthcare workers was 57.5% and 48.5% in Abha City [15] and Arar City [16], respectively. In other local studies that focused on a particular setting or occupation, the prevalence of workplace violence ranged between 90.7% in emergency departments in Tabuk [12] to 27.7% in primary care centers in Al-Hassa [14].…”

“…There are a number of studies that examined workplace violence among healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. However, most of these studies were limited to a specific occupation like nursing [9,10], or a specific healthcare setting like emergency departments [11,12] or primary care centers [13,14].…”

“…However, most of these studies were limited to a specific occupation like nursing [9,10], or a specific healthcare setting like emergency departments [11,12] or primary care centers [13,14]. To the best of our knowledge, there are only two Saudi studies that addressed workplace violence among all healthcare workers without being limited to a specific department or healthcare setting [15,16]. The first study was conducted in Arar city by Al Anazi et al, which found that there was a 48.6% prevalence of workplace violence among healthcare workers working in general hospitals and primary care centers [15].…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, there are only two Saudi studies that addressed workplace violence among all healthcare workers without being limited to a specific department or healthcare setting [15,16]. The first study was conducted in Arar city by Al Anazi et al, which found that there was a 48.6% prevalence of workplace violence among healthcare workers working in general hospitals and primary care centers [15]. The second study was in Abha City, where the prevalence of workplace violence was found to be 57.5% [16].…”

Workplace violence among Registered Nurses in Saudi Arabia: A qualitative study

“…In a study conducted among 738 healthcare workers in 2 government health facility in Abha City, Saudi Arabia, 57.5% of the respondents were victims. Verbal assaults and slaps were the most common forms of violence (Al Anazi et al., 2020; Alsaleem et al., 2018). Another study conducted in a Saudi university hospital found out that almost half of the total sample quota of 360 nursing personnel had experienced violence during the 12‐month period before the study was formally conducted using the Massachusetts Survey on Workplace Violence/Abuse (Alkorashy & AL Moalad, 2016).…”