Determinants of workplace violence against clinical physicians in hospitals

Workplace violence in the health sector is a worldwide concern. Physicians play an essential role in health-care teamwork; thus, understanding how organizational factors influence workplace violence against physicians is critical.

A total of 189 physicians from three public hospitals and one private hospital in Northern Taiwan completed a survey, and the response rate was 47.1%. This study was approved by the institutional review board of each participating hospital. The 189 physicians were selected from the Taipei area, Taiwan.

The results showed that 41.5% of the respondents had received at least one workplace-related physical or verbal violent threat, and that 9.8% of the respondents had experienced at least one episode of sexual harassment in the 3 months before the survey. Logistic regression analysis revealed that physicians in psychiatry or emergency medicine departments received more violent threats and sexual harassment than physicians in other departments. Furthermore, physicians with a lower workplace safety climate (OR=0.89; 95% CI=0.81-0.98) and more job demands (OR=1.15; 95% CI=1.02-1.30) were more likely to receive violent threats.

This study found that workplace violence was associated with job demands and the workplace safety climate. Therefore, determining how to develop a workplace safety climate and ensure a safe job environment for physicians is a crucial management policy issue for health-care systems.