Risk of Violence among Nurses in Emergency Departments at Baghdad City Hospitals: The Mediating Role of the Work Environment

Abstract

Background: Workplace violence is a problem of international healthcare among the workers in alldepartments of the healthcare systems, but more severe at the emergency departments.Nurses in theemergency departments are working on the front lines of violence. This study aims to examine risk ofviolence among nurses in the emergency departments and to find out the association between nurses’ age,years of working in nursing, years of working in emergency departments, work hours, violent events bypatients, violent events by coworkers, likelihood of exposure to violence in the future, work environment,intention to leave the job, and risk of violence.Method: A descriptive predictive study design has been carried out.A non-probability (convenience) sampleof (380) nurses from the emergency departments of (12) hospitals in Baghdad city center were selected toparticipate in the study.Data were collected through a self-report instrument that includesnurses socio-demographic data, theemployment data, general information about the violent events, Intention to Leave the Job Scale, Riskof Violence Scale, Violent Events by Patient Scale, Violent Events by co-workers Scale, Likelihood ofExposure to Violence in the Future Scale and the Nursing Work Environment Scale. The data were analyzedusing the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26.The study results revealed thata half of the nurses described the risk of violence they can expose to in theworkplace as average. There is a statistically significant inverse correlation between nurses’ age, years ofexperience in nursing, years of experience in EDs and their exposure to violent event by the coworkers, andrisk of violence. The researcher concluded that the younger the nurses, the less the experience they have innursing, the less the experience they have in the EDs, the greater the exposure to violence by coworkers, andrisk of violence.