Nearly 90% of personnel in emergency services and care institutions reported experiencing violence in the past year, according to a survey by Vias Institute, published on Thursday.
The study involved 1,711 respondents nationwide and focused on three types of violence: verbal abuse, physical violence, and threats.
In terms of verbal abuse, 15% of respondents said they were insulted weekly. Around three-quarters (73.7%) experienced insults at least once in the past 12 months, and 45.6% reported being yelled at with varying frequency: from daily to monthly.
Women far more likely to experience sexual violence
Nearly half of the respondents (47%) experienced physical violence against themselves or their equipment. This includes object damage, shoving, grabbing, hitting, and spitting. One in seven respondents reported being kicked or grabbed monthly.
In this category, women report being victims more often than men (52.1% compared to 46.6%).
Women are also significantly more affected by gender-based and sexual violence, including unwanted touching, sexually inappropriate comments, whistling, and even rape.
About 55.2% of women surveyed reported experiencing such aggression at least once in the past year, compared to 18% of men.
Results include stress, poor sleep, reduced job satisfaction
Six individuals, whose genders were not specified, reported being raped while performing their duties.
Regarding threats, nearly two-thirds (61%) of the respondents reported being targeted last year. In 22% of cases, their relatives were also threatened.
Consequences of these violent incidents include stress (reported by 68% of respondents), sleep disturbance (51%), and reduced job satisfaction (51%). A third of respondents (36%) were considering changing jobs.
Other reported consequences such as absenteeism and even work incapacitation.
The majority of aggressors (56.3%) were patients being treated by the victims, followed by patients' relatives (19.1%). In 10% of cases, a colleague was identified as the aggressor, and in one out of twenty, a superior was involved. Additionally, over 8% reported that the aggressor was a bystander.
Victims should be encouraged to report incidents - Vias
A significant number of these incidents went unreported, with only one in three workers (35%) informing their superiors about the most serious incidents, while only about one in seven filed a police report. The leading reason cited for remaining silent was the belief that the incidents were "not serious enough.”
However, Vias emphasises that reporting these incidents is crucial to tackling the issue.
“Victims should be encouraged to report such incidents as much as possible," it says. "The more victims are supported in this process, the more targeted responses can be developed, tailored to different contexts, aggressor profiles, and types of aggression.
"Diverse reasons exist for not reporting, but such acts should never be considered ‘part of the job’.”
