The Correlation Between Nurses' Workplace Violence with Quality of Nursing Care at Intensive Care Units

Personnel in the health care system always suffer from a combination of terrifying or real physical attacks and verbal aggression when they are involved in hard work and emergency tasks. The aim of the study was to assess the nurse's workplace violence with the quality of nursing care in intensive care units (ICUs) in Iran. In this Descriptive-correlational study, 120 nurses working at general ICUs in six public teaching hospitals in Tehran completed a survey from 22 December to 29 February 2021. The research team gathered Data through demographic surveying, a modified workplace violence questionnaire adopted from the World Health Organization's (WHO's) questionnaire on workplace violence, and the Quality Patient Care Scale (QUALPAC). Of all participants, 80 were females, of which 66.7% were 35.13 ± 6.75 years old on average, and 85.8% had experienced verbal violence from the patient's companion in their workplaces. There was no meaningful correlation between physical abuse, verbal violence, and ethnic assaults and dimensions of quality of nursing care and the total score obtained (p > 0.05). Physical violence was not correlated with the communicative and psychosocial aspects of the quality of nursing care. At the same time, a meaningful but poor correlation (-0.27) was observed between physical abuse and the physical aspect of the quality of nursing care (p < 0.05). Although workplace violence was poorly correlated with the quality of nursing care in the intensive care units, further assessments of this phenomenon and establishing of a working group to achieve practical solutions that enhance the quality of nursing care in hospitals.