Workplace Violence in Medical Specialty Training Settings in Iran: A Cross-sectional Study

Workplace violence is frequent in medical specialty training setting in Iran. Therefore, development and implementation of workplace violence prevention guideline in this setting is a necessity. Workplace violence has become an issue of increasing concern. Residents are often the first physician that patients will meet them. We conducted this study to evaluate workplace violence against medical residents in Iran. In a cross-sectional questionnaire-based study, we asked 1107 medical residents about violence exposure during past 12 months. Overall, 892 of residents (2010-2011) participated in our study (response rate = 80.6%). Prevalence of experience of psychological and physical violence at work was obtained 63.7% and 19.7%, respectively. Sex, residency program, managerial support and year of education had independent effect on violence at work. Our results showed high frequency of violence at work against Iranian medical residents and indicated importance of development and implementation of workplace violence prevention guideline in medical specialty training setting in Iran.