AGGRESSION IN THE HUNGARIAN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

Background: The scientific data is accumulating regarding the increasing frequency of verbal and physical violent acts against health care providers; these are usually committed by patients or their relatives. The present study aimed to assess the frequency of violent acts against Hungarian health care workers. The correlations between emotional effects of violence and age and level of health care service were also investigated. Methods: Six hundred fifty health care providers were enrolled in the cross-sectional study, which has met the requirements of the ethical regulations currently in effect. In the final analysis the 423 valid data sets were included. The questionnaire contained some self-constructed questions, the Overt Aggression Scale and the IMPACS for the assessment of the emotional effects. Data were analysed by the means of IBM SPSS 22.0 for Windows software; analysis of variance and chi-square test were applied. The level of significance was set to p<0.05. Results: At least one violent act was experienced by 89.8% of the responders during work. Verbal aggression was four-times more frequent than the mildest physical violence. Bad language (p=0.017) and threatening (p=0.001) were directed mostly towards workers in the age range of 30-39 years. Minor physical injuries were reported least frequently by responders above 50 years (p=0.014). Health care providers in the in-patient care were more frequently the targets of verbal and physical aggression during their work (p<0.001). The younger the victim of workplace related violence is, the more possible it is that the relationship with the patient will be impaired and the workers will develop a patient avoidant attitude (p<0.001; r=0.240). Conclusions: Hungarian health care providers enrolled in the present study are affected by aggression mostly verbal violence - especially in-patient caretakers are involved. Severe physical injuries are not so commonly reported.