2010 Volume 11 Issue 3 Pages 171-178
Recently, workplace violence at hospitals has become an increasing problem. The purpose of this study is to investigate this phenomenon, and the situation of in-house management systems dealing with workplace violence in hospitals in Japan.
A questionnaire was distributed to all 2248 member hospitals of the All Japan Hospital Association over the period from December 2007 to January 2008.
The response rate was 49.2% (1106/2248). 576 hospitals (52.1%) provided 6882 cases of workplace violence that occurred over the year prior to the survey. Most of the cases (86.9%) were caused by patients. In-house management systems dealing with workplace violence were introduced in 10-30% of the responding hospitals. Hospitals with a history of workplace violence were more likely to have an in-house management system than those without.
The high survey response rate might be a reflection of an increasing attention among healthcare facilities towards workplace violence. The result of this study though suggests that an in-house management system alone is not sufficient to secure the safety of hospital staff. Guidelines, reporting systems of workplace violence, and other countermeasures to prevent workplace violence should be developed and introduced with a priority to provide high quality healthcare services.
