Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Mar 3;22(1):291.
doi: 10.1186/s12913-022-07602-5.

Prevalence and health correlates of workplace violence and discrimination against hospital employees - a cross-sectional study in German-speaking Switzerland

Alenka Stahl-Gugger  1 , Oliver Hämmig  2
Affiliations

Prevalence and health correlates of workplace violence and discrimination against hospital employees - a cross-sectional study in German-speaking Switzerland

Alenka Stahl-Gugger et al. BMC Health Serv Res. .

Abstract

Background: Violence and discrimination are common events at work, especially in health care. Moreover, such workplace experiences are considered to have negative impacts and particularly adverse health consequences on health care workers. Nevertheless, the problem is still highly underreported and thus largely ignored and unexplored in Switzerland as comprehensive data and studies on their prevalence and health correlates among hospital staffs and health professionals are widely missing.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was based on secondary data from a company survey among several public hospitals and rehabilitation clinics in German-speaking Switzerland conducted in 2015/16. The study population was limited to a subsample of 1567 health professionals among the surveyed staffs of five participating hospitals and clinics. Relative frequencies of different forms of violence and discrimination at work and the total number of such experiences were calculated for the entire study population and for occupational subgroups. These data were compared with a nationally representative subsample of the Swiss Health Survey 2017 as a reference population. Multiple logistic regression analyses were further computed to investigate the association between the number of different experienced forms of violence and/or discrimination at work and several poor general and mental health outcomes.

Results: 23% of the inverviewed hospital employees experienced at least one form of discrimination or violence at work in the past year, compared to 18% of the general working population. Nurses were by far the most affected occupational group regarding all forms of violence. More and particularly the most exposed and affected hospital employees with regard to experiences of violence and/or discrimination at work showed almost consistently increased frequencies and relative risks for the studied poor mental and general health outcomes. Prevalence rates and odds ratios for strong sleep disorders, strong stress feelings and increased burnout symptoms were between 3 and 4 times higher among the most exposed compared to the non-exposed group of hospital employees.

Conclusions: Study findings underline the importance of an active combat against violent and discriminatory behaviors in health care. Prevention strategies should particularly focus on nurses and midwives, which turned out to be the most affected and exposed group of all health professions.

Keywords: General health; Hospital employees; Mental health; Workplace discrimination; Workplace violence.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Theoretical path model showing the assumed and studied associations between exposure, outcome and confounding variables
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Chappell D, Di Martino V. Violence at work. 3. Geneva: International Labour Office; 2006. Patterns and trends; pp. 29–70.
    1. Civilotti C, Berlanda S, Iozzino L. Hospital-based healthcare workers victims of workplace violence in Italy: a scoping review. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021;18(11):5860. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Liu J, Gan Y, Jiang H, Li L, Dwyer R, Lu K, et al. Prevalence of workplace violence against healthcare workers: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Occup Environ Med. 2019;76(12):927–937. - PubMed
    1. Lu L, Dong M, Wang SB, Zhang L, Ng CH, Ungvari G, et al. Prevalence of workplace violence against health-care professionals in China: a comprehensive Meta-analysis of observational surveys. Trauma Violence Abuse. 2020;21(3):498–509. - PubMed
    1. Varghese A, Joseph J, Vijay VR, Khakha DC, Dhandapani M, Gigini G, et al. Prevalence and determinants of workplace violence among nurses in the South-East Asian and Western Pacific Regions: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Clin Nurs. 2021;00:1–22. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources