ABSTRACT
Introduction: Healthcare professionals are 16 times more likely to experience workplace violence than other work groups. Verbal abuse is the most common type of abuse. However, in recent years it has been found that healthcare professionals, especially nurses, are sexually harassed in their workplace.
Aim: To explore the frequency of verbal abuse and sexual harassment among the medical and nursing staff of public hospitals in the prefecture of Attica.
Material – Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from May to July 2023 in 342 doctors and nurses of two public hospitals. The Verbal Abuse Scale was used to assess verbal violence, while the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ) was used for sexual harassment.
Results: The 82.1% of participants were nurses. The 88.9% of the sample was the recipient of verbal abuse at least once a year. Abusers were relatives of patients (36.8%), patients (33.0%), someone superior (28.3%) and the direct supervisor (20.70%). The most common behaviors were harsh criticism, blaming and blaming, and insults disguised as a joke. Furthermore, 70.2% of the participants had received at least one of the 24 sexually harassing behaviors of the SEQ questionnaire. The perpetrators were mainly a male doctor (48.3%), a patient (28.5%), an accompanying patient (20.5%), and a male nurse (17.9%). Only 7.9% reported the incident. Furthermore, 38.4% faced some physical problems, 46.7% some mental problems, while 43.8% had their work performance affected.
Conclusions: A large percentage of medical and nursing staff suffer verbal violence and sexual harassment without mention it. This highlights the need to implement drastic measures on the part of health policy makers to help victims speak out without fear of negative consequences. Hospital administrations are urged to implement effective policies against sexual harassment and verbal abuse.
Keywords: Health professionals, workplace violence, verbal abuse of nurses, sexual harassment
