Incidence of violence against nurses in the educational-medical centers in Rasht

Introduction: Violence at work is considered an important risk factor worldwide. Nurses due to their presence and practice in treatment centers, direct contact with patients and also many stresses are at risk of various types of violence. Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of violence against nurses working in educational-medical centers in Rasht city. Methods: This is a descriptive-analytical cross sectional study which its population consists of nurses employed in educational-medical centers in Rasht city and 442 nurses were selected by stratified randomize sampling methods. Data collection instrument was extracted from Nachreiner and Rahmany tools used to survey incidence of violence against nurses in the educational-medical centers in Rasht. The findings were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics such as T and Chi square tests. Result: Findings showed that 54.1% and 11.1% of nurses experienced verbal and physical violence respectively. Verbal violence in most cases occurred by visitors and physical violence often occurred by patients and in most cases who did not report violence was because it was considered useless. In addition results indicated a significant relationship between verbal violence and level of education (P= 0.02) and physical violence and work condition (P=0.02) and marital status (P=0.02). Conclusion: Results indicated high frequency of verbal and physical abuse toward nurses in health centers in Rasht and different measures are needed to decrease its incidence.