Vivencias y percepción de los profesionales sanitarios de las urgencias extrahospitalarias ante las agresiones

OBJECTIVE: To know the opinions of the health professionals who work at the Ourense Continuous Care Point (PAC) regarding work aggressions. DESIGN: Qualitative study with phenomenological approach carried out between January and May 2019. SETTING: PAC. PARTICIPANTS: Twenty professionals of different categories. METHOD: Structural sampling. Open interviews recorded in audio were used, with the prior consent of the participants. RESULTS: The interviewed professionals state that they have been victims of aggressions, especially verbal ones. These aggressions according to the participants are so common that they have normalized them within their working day. None has ever denounced this type of behavior, largely because they consider that the bureaucracy and administrative procedures are tedious, and others due to ignorance of the procedure. These types of situations, at work level, cause them feelings of sadness, anger and helplessness and are the cause according to them, of the increase in defensive medicine. Professionals believe that the cause of the increase in aggressions among the group is due to poor education and inadequate management of patient empowerment. CONCLUSIONS: Health professionals continually suffer aggressions, especially verbal, being common in their day to day. These attacks are not reported, but they cause multiple negative and disruptive feelings, changing their way of working.