Psychological violence in the nursing work

Objective: to investigate and characterize psychological violence practices within teams in the relationship between patients, caregivers and other professionals with the nursing staff of the public hospital network of Caxias, in the State of Maranhao, Brazil. Method: descriptive, quantitative, cross-sectional study with data collected by form between November/2013-May/2014. Results: verbal aggression is the most common psychological violence subtype 95% (84), followed by bullying 27% (24). Emergency rooms 51% (45) are the most frequent place; patients 60% (53) are the main aggressors; nurses 76% (19) suffer more violence, being mostly female, young and inexperienced. Conclusion: the largest number of occurrences was of verbal aggression perpetrated by patients against nurses in the emergency room. Workers try to pretend that nothing happened or are inert in the face of violence. Employers do little about the case, referring to the need for strategies to control violence.