Article ID: JOSH-2019-0018-GE
In hospitals, sexual harassment toward staff by patients or their family members is an especially critical issue. Therefore, we conducted a cross-sectional survey on 478 staff members— across both genders and all ranges of medical professionals— from a hospital in the Chugoku region of Japan. Results revealed that 42.7% of staff had been sexually harassed by patients or their family members; the nature of the sexual harassment varied. The results of logistic regression analysis showed that sexual harassment acts such as “remark about appearance” for nursing or care staff; “hugs” and “dirty talk” for rehabilitation workers; and “sexual questions” for clerical workers are more common compared to other occupations. Furthermore, 46.5% of the victims did not ask for any advice or assistance, at the time of the incident or afterward, for various reasons such as : “It was meaningless to seek help,” and “I thought I just had to endure it.” The results of this study suggest that: 1) a more appropriate understanding of the actual situation is possible by not defining occupations and gender, and by presenting definitions and specific examples of sexual harassment; 2) effective strategies for promoting help-seeking behavior should be examined based on each inhibitory factor.
