Nearly three-fourths of U.S. workplace assaults take place in healthcare settings. Medical professionals across the country are affected by this violence — the World Health Organization estimates that up to 38% of healthcare workers experience physical violence during their career, and a significantly larger percentage face verbal aggression.
On Monday, medical social networking platform Doximity released a report that explored this concerning trend of violence waged against healthcare staff. The company surveyed more than 4,800 clinicians in May, and 64% of respondents said they have felt physically unsafe at their job.
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A full 76% of female clinicians said they have felt physically unsafe at work, compared to 51% of male clinicians. This finding aligns with research conducted last year by Boston Medical Center and Stanford University School of Medicine, which showed that female physicians are twice as likely to be mistreated by patients than male physicians.
Additionally, clinicians under age 40 reported feeling more unsafe at their jobs than their older counterparts. Seventy percent of respondents ages 30-39 reported feeling physically unsafe at work, compared to 68% of respondents ages 40-49, 64% of respondents ages 50 to 59, 59% of respondents ages 60-69 and 49% of respondents ages 70 and older.
One rationalization for this trend could be that younger healthcare professionals are less experienced and therefore less confident in their abilities to deescalate instances of workplace violence, the report said. Research shows that only a small percentage of physician residents receive training on violence prevention and de-escalation.
The report also pointed out that healthcare workers’ perceived risk of violence varies by specialty. Emergency medicine physicians and clinicians who work with patients struggling with addiction and other mental health conditions reported feeling the most unsafe at work.
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One of the most critical ways that health systems can protect their workers against violence is ensuring that all staff members receive violence prevention and de-escalation training, said Félix Manuel Chinea, Doximity’s head of health equity and inclusion strategy, in a recent interview.
Another important action that hospital leaders can take is voicing support for the Safety from Violence for Healthcare Employees Act, a 2019 bipartisan bill that was reintroduced in Congress this year. This legislation would provide healthcare staff with the same legal protections given to flight crews and airport workers, Chinea explained.
Amid healthcare’s sweeping workforce shortage, hospitals have found themselves in a position where they need to build clinicians’ trust and loyalty, he pointed out.
“As clinicians who are on the front lines communicate their needs and experiences, that incentive to build trust will make health systems want to be responsive,” Chinea declared. “We are seeing larger healthcare organizations work together on building solutions, which I think is the path forward. This is not a problem that one health system can address on its own. It’s really going to have to be a coalition that builds and establishes policies that are across the larger healthcare ecosystem.”
Photo: okanmetin, Getty Images
