Nurses confronting sexual harassment in the medical environment

Sexual harassment is an important and widespread public health problem, particularly for nurses who work in the medical environment. Some studies note that nursing is the profession with the highest rates of sexual harassment; however, few studies of sexual harassment of nurses in the medical workplace were found in Taiwan. Methodologically, a cross-sectional survey with a self-administered structured questionnaire was implemented for this study. Subjects of this survey were recruited from the nurses of six teaching hospitals by a purposive sampling method. A total of 307 subjects were selected. The results show: (1) there are 175 subjects who experienced sexual harassment in medical practice, which is 57% of 307 sampled nurses; (2) the frequency of verbal sexual harassment (55.7%) is higher than non-verbal sexual harassment (40.1%) and physical sexual harassment (39.1%). The results of this study can provide information for the teaching hospitals and clinical instructors to help understand the prevalence and management strategies for nurses suffering from sexual harassment in the medical workplace.