ABSTRACT

The violence against health workers has been increasing worldwide and in Turkey and is becoming a significant occupational health problem. The violence at healthcare settings is defined as “the threat behavior, verbal threat, economic abuse, physical aggression or sexual assault committed by the patient, patient’s relatives, or another individual, and causes risk for healthcare workers”. Our objective isevaluating the violence against healthcare workers who presented to outpatient clinics of Department of Forensic Medicine at Istanbul Faculty of Medicine. Five healthcare workers who presented due to the committed violence by the patient/patient’s relative were evaluated. The patients were aged between 26-47 years, and the mean age was 30.8 years. One patient was male. Three were physicians, one was a nurse, and the other was a caregiver. Physical violence in four patients, and psychiatric trauma in four patients were detected during the forensic examinations. Health workers have almost become the main responsible for the defects in the system, and the target for the violence due to the confrontation of health workers and patients after the changes in health policy, the way of the media in handling the medical practice errors, and the failure to meet safe working conditions. It has been reported that 72.6% of the health workers were exposed to violence during their working period, and 72.4% were exposed to violence in the last 12 months. Resolution suggestions, and the prevalence and severity of the problem were discussed in the present study.

Keywords: Violence, Health Services, Forensic Medicine.