Workplace sexual harassment among nurses of a university hospital in Egypt

To assess the magnitude of sexual harassment, its effect on nurses, and to identify the predictors of workplace sexual harassment in one of the university hospitals of Upper Egypt.

A cross -sectional study of 296 nurses working at Sohag University Hospital was completed between November 2018 and March 2019. Nurses selected by systematic random sampling were invited to complete a self-administered questionnaire covering personal, workplace, and other determinants of sexual harassment. Logistic regression analysis was performed to identify predictors of sexual harassment.

More than half of the nurses (58.1%) were exposed to at least one form of sexual harassment. The most recent incident of sexual harassment was verbal in the majority of cases (53.5%), followed by non-verbal (mainly sexual gestures) (28.5%) and lastly physical (18%). Two-thirds (69.8%) of the nurses exposed to sexual harassment reported that they were negatively affected by the incident. Low job satisfaction was the main complaint reported by more than half of the harassed nurses (64.2%). Predictors of sexual harassment were being single, working in open units, and having fewer years of work experience.

Workplace sexual harassment among nurses was high, and was associated with lower job satisfaction. The study findings suggest that sexual harassment at work may result in the intention of nurses to leave their jobs and negatively impact the nurse working force.