The prevalence of physical and verbal violence among emergency medicine physicians in military hospitals vs non-military hospitals, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: multi-center cross-sectional study

• Published in: BMC emergency medicine 2024-07, Vol.24 (1), p.129-11, Article 129
• Main Authors: Babkair, Kholoud Abdullah, Altirkistani, Bsaim Abdulsalam, Baljoon, Jamil Mostafa, Almehmadi, Abdulrahman Adnan, Atiah, Ahmad Loay, Alsadan, Sultan Abdullah, Moamena, Montasir Esam
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Aggression; Cross-Sectional Studies; Data analysis; Data collection; Emergency medical care; Emergency Medicine; Emergency Service, Hospital - statistics & numerical data; Family physicians; Female; Health care; Health care industry; Hospitals; Hospitals, Military - statistics & numerical data; Humans; Male; Medical personnel; Medicine; Middle Aged; Military aspects; Military hospitals; Military physicians; Patients; Perpetrators; Physical Abuse - statistics & numerical data; Physician; Physicians - statistics & numerical data; Prevalence; Questionnaires; Response rates; Saudi Arabia - epidemiology; Security; Security guards; Shift work; Statistical analysis; Surveys and Questionnaires; Training; Violence; Workloads; Workplace violence; Workplace Violence - statistics & numerical data
• ISSN: 1471-227X; 1471-227X
• DOI: 10.1186/s12873-024-01049-z

In healthcare settings, physical and verbal attacks are commonly encountered in the workplace among healthcare providers. Patients and patients' relatives and friends have been reported to be the perpetrators of workplace violence. Among all healthcare settings, emergency department (ED) have been designated as high-risk settings for violence, where more than one-quarter of emergency physicians reported that they were victims of physical assault. This study aimed to report the prevalence of workplace violence against emergency medicine physicians in military and non-military hospitals in Jeddah city. A cross-sectional design has been used in this study. An electronic questionnaire was developed through the Google Form Platform and it included demographic data, the occurrence of verbal or physical violence in the workplace to participants, how many times they experienced this violence, the time of incidents, the location either inside or outside the hospital, whether the perpetrators were mostly patients, patient families, or friends, and whether they reported any violence or not. Categorical variables were used to describe frequencies and percentages, while descriptive statistics such as mean and 95% Confidence Interval (95% CI) were used to summarize the scale variables. P