A university hospital patients and their relatives' opinions on violence in health

作者：Yasar Zehtiye Fusun^*; Durukan Elif; Buken Erhan

来源：Romanian Journal of Legal Medicine, 2017, 25(1): 65-69.

DOI：10.4323/rjlm.2017.65

• patients
• patient relatives
• violence
• health workers

Background. Currently, sectors rendering service for the public such as health, education transport and etc. are frequently exposed to violence without discriminating between age, gender, educational level and occupation. Within these sectors, health sector constitutes the most risky group because it generally renders service to individuals who are distressed and need care Aims. The study aimed to determine the opinions of patients and patient relatives s on violence against health professionals
Methods: This descriptive study conducted in January-February 2015 and was implemented on 192 patients and patient relatives applied to a university hospital and who consented to participate the study. A questionnaire form was applied to the participants. IBM SPSS 22.0 statistical package program was used to analyze the data.
Results. The mean age of the study participants was 41.3 +/- 13.7; 52,1 % were females and the educational level of 65.6% is university/doctorate level. Nearly 88% of patients stated that violence is not a method for seeking legal remedies, and they believed that it is wrong to use violence against the intervening doctor even in case where it was not possible to save the patient (91.7%). The participants stated that the cause of the increase in violence against health care workers; was related to lack of education of the patients and their relatives (73.2%) and was associated with longer waiting times in hospitals for examination (53.2%). Participants stated the reasons for getting angry in a healthcare facility as being ignored by healthcare professionals (76.6%) and failure in being informed about their patients' status. (54.2%). Thirteen (6.8%) of participants stated that they used violence against healthcare professionals and 7 of these stated that the incident took place in the emergency room.
Conclusion. To prevent the violence cases, all individuals constituting the public, including patients/patient relatives and healthcare professionals should be trained. We think that presence of health care providers having high communication skills to communicate the individuals applied to health institution due to their illnesses and presence of effective security systems will contribute to solving of the problem.

• 出版日期2017-4