Workplace violence against healthcare workers: a case study in a general hospital, South of Vietnam

Objectives: To describe the exposure of healthcare workers (HCWs) to different forms of violence penetrated by patients/clients or their relatives and analyze some factors affecting violence against HCWs in Thap Muoi Regional General Hospital, Dong Thap province in 2021.
Methods: This study employed cross-sectional design with quantitative and qualitative research. The quantitative research is conducted through a survey of 139 HCWs using the revised ILO/ICN/WHO/PSI questionnaire. The qualitative research was conducted through 09 in-depth interviews and 2 focus group discussions with stakeholders to analyze the factors affecting violence against HCWs. Results: 10.8% of HCWs experienced at least 1 time of physical violence by patients/relatives; 71.9% of HCWs suffered psychological violence includes verbal abuse (100.0%); bullying (67.0%), threats (76.0%) and sexual harassment (19.0%). Some factors that increased the risk of violence against HCWs include perpetrators were men, adolescents, drug users and lack of awareness of hospital rules; HCWs were young, inexperienced, had poor attitudes and communication skills; high
pressure and overload working environment. Meanwhile, some factors such as reasonable procedures for receiving and handling emergencies, the coordination of the security team combined with the equipped hospital security system and the continuous improvement of the quality of services had contributed to decrease violence against HCWs.

Conclusion: Our results indicated that the prevalence of HCWs' experience of violence has been still high and related to personal characteristics such as age and level of expertise, and hospital characteristics such as high patient admission rates. In order to minimize violence to HCWs, improving workplace security associated with training for HCWs on handling violence should be continuous implemented.

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