Workplace Violence Against Medical Students in Shiraz, Iran

Violent behavior in the workplace, or workplace violence (WPV), is considered a serious threat to the mental and physical health of employees. WPV ranges from verbal abuse to physical assaults and even sexual harassment. Every medical student may be repeatedly exposed to violence in hospitals due to direct contact with the public and patients. This study investigates the prevalence of all types of WPV against medical students. A retrospective, cross-sectional study was conducted on 275 medical students in the educational hospitals of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. The survey questionnaire used was a modified version of a WPV questionnaire translated into Persian. The questionnaire contained demographic information and types of violence experienced including physical violence, verbal violence and sexual harassment. Standard descriptive statistics were used to report the frequency of events. The associations between categorical variables were analyzed using the Chi-square test. Of 193 respondents, 24.9% reported experiencing physical violence, 85.5% reported being verbally threatened and 26.1% reported being sexually harassed. Males were more likely to be exposed to physical violence and females to sexual harassment. Patients’ relatives were the most frequent perpetrators of physical and verbal violence while physician colleagues were the main source of sexual harassment As the emotionally stimulated companions of patients were found to be the most frequent perpetrators of physical and verbal violence, providing special training for medical students on how to deal with such incidents, increasing the number of nursery personnel and increasing the quantity and quality of hospital guards is necessary to minimize the prevalence of violence against medical students.