The Experiences of Workplace Violence toward Nurses in Hospitals in Jeju Province, South Korea

Abstract

Results: The respondents experienced unpleasant or insulting words (89.8%), verbal threat (38.2%), physical threat (67.7%), physical injury (32.7%), severe physical injury (2.8%), and sexual harassment (26.4%) during the last one year. The frequent offenders were patients, patients' family and physicians in order. The causes of violence which nurses perceived were personality of offenders (76.4%), lack of assessment of aggressive patients or care givers (42.1%), and lack of explanation to patients or caregivers (33.5%). They reported that coping strategies for workplace violence were 'established reporting system (63.4%)', 'building a cooperative circumstances within team members (58.3%)', and 'formulation of hospital policies for violence prevention and coping (54.3%)'. Conclusion: These findings showed nurses are at considerable risk for workplace violence, and they experience various types of violence from patients, caregivers, and physicians. We suggest that hospitals formulate appropriate policies, guidelines and programs to prevent and cope with workplace violence in hospitals. 서 론 1. 연구의 필요성 안전한 근무환경은 모든 근로자에게 기본적으로 보장되 어야 한다. 의료기관에 근무하는 간호사에게도 질적인 간 호업무를 수행하도록 하기 위해서는 안전한 근무환경과 인 간으로서 존중받을 권리가 보장되어야 한다(Kim & Kim, 2004). 그러나 병원은 여러 가지 유형의 폭력이 만연하여 그다지 안전한 근로 환경은 아닌 것으로 나타나고 있다. 보 건의료 종사자는 교도소의 교도관이나 경찰, 운수업에 종 사하는 사람들보다도 업무 중 공격받을 위험성이 더 높다 고 보고되었고(Kingma, 2001), 보건의료 종사자 중에서도 의료기관에서 상당한 비율을 차지하고 있는 간호사는 (Shoghi et al., 2008), 폭력에 가장 취약하다고 보고되었다 (Shoghi et al., 2008).