Assessment of Workplace Violence among Primary Healthcare Workers in Enugu Metropolis

Introduction: Work place violence in health-care facilities are on the rise and are routinely underreported.

Objective: This study investigated the prevalence of workplace violence among primary health-care workers in Enugu metropolis.

Materials and Methods: The participants were selected via multi–stage sampling method. A total of 117 out of 135 questionnaires from primary health-care workers in Enugu metropolis were collated and analyzed with the aid of frequency tables and charts.

Results: The results showed that the primary health-care workers are exposed to verbal and non-verbal harassment when working alone in shifts as a contributing factor to workplace violence, subjected to their type of work. This violence most times not reported owing to fear, stigmatization and mistrust of the workers that management will not take their cases serious, this, ultimately impinge on the overall job performance, revenue generation as well as job integrity. Based on the influence of workplace violence on work and life of primary health-care workers about 61.5% of primary health-care workers agrees that workplace violence experience leads to fear and impaired performance and majority agrees that workplace violence does not depends on tribe and religion. Based on predictors of workplace violence, about 69.4%, 69% and 69.1% of primary health-care workers agrees that level of education, work cadre and years of experience influences workplace violence respectively.

Conclusion: The study shows that primary health-care workers are exposed to different workplace violence: physical, threat, verbal and sexual harassment. Also, primary health-care workers agree that patient relatives (31.9%) and colleague (17.4%) are the main sources of workplace violence mostly due to misunderstanding. Out of 75 victims of workplace violence 66.7% reported their cases while about 53.6% did not report. Victims of workplace violence should be encouraged to speak up.