TY - JOUR PY - 2021// TI - Frequency and barriers of reporting workplace violence in nurses: an online survey in China JO - International journal of nursing sciences A1 - Song, Chunyan A1 - Wang, Gaili A1 - Wu, Hongyan SP - 65 EP - 70 VL - 8 IS - 1 N2 - OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to explore the reporting of workplace violence against nurses and the reasons why they did not reported.

METHODS: A self-designed questionnaire regarding workplace violence and reporting was used to conduct a cross-sectional survey on nurses who submitted a manuscript to a Chinese nursing journal from 2016 to 2017. A total of 324 nurses agreed to participate in this study and 266 participants from 165 hospitals in 72 cities returned questionnaires.

RESULTS: A total of 172 nurses (64.7%) experienced violent incidents during the past year. Of these incidents, 45.5% were reported; and the reporting rate of physical assaults (69.0%) was higher than those of verbal abuse (36.9%), threatening behavior (51.7%), and sexual harassment (60.0%). Formal reporting accounted for 25.4% (15.4% in written form and 10.0% through a computer-assisted reporting system). Almost half of the nurses (49.6%) stated that the hospital had no reporting system or they were uncertain about the reporting system. For reasons of not reporting, 51.9% of the nurses were unware of how and what types of violence to report, and 50.6% of the nurses believed that the hospital paid greater attention to patients rather than staff.

CONCLUSIONS: A clear definition of workplace violence and reporting procedures, establishment of a facile system for reporting, and supervisory support following a reporting are urgently required.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 2096-6296 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnss.2020.11.006 ID - ref1 ER -