Violence on Health Workers at The Workplace and its Management Strategy: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background: Healthcare workers at workplace frequently face with patients becoming violent because of undesired events such as a long wait. Globally, workplace violence is a major challenge to safety for health workers, involving significant consequences to the victims, patients, and healthcare organizations. This study aimed to systematically review violence on health workers at the workplace and its management strategy. Subjects and Method: A systematic review was conducted by searching published articles from 2015 to 2019 including ProQuest, Springer Link, and Scopus. The keyword for this review was "prevalence" AND "risk factor" AND "workplace violence" AND "hospital". The inclusion criteria were English, open acces, health worker, and cross-sectional. After review process, 14 articles were included in this study. Results: Violence was affected by age of the victim, lack of courage to report incidents of violence, work experience, direct interaction with patients, feeling of worry / anxiety, shift system, and night work. Two articles stated lack of courage to report incidents of violence as a predictor. Three articles stated reporting as a futile act as a cause of under reporting. An article stated that the institution had taken necessary steps and provided encouragement to report act of violence, as well as had chosen strategies to prevent violence, including security measure, protocol, and training related to violence in the workplace. Conclusion: Violence is often found in health workers in the workplace. Violence was affected by age of the victim, lack of courage to report incidents of violence, work experience, direct interaction with patients, feeling of worry/anxiety, shift system, and night work. Improving management in health care facilities is needed to prevent and deal with workplace violence.