Verbal Abuse in the Operating Room: A Survey of Three General Hospitals in the Peloponnese Region

Background The operating room is a special place in a hospital structure, which has a very high psychological load and many moments of tension, often leading to difficulties in communication between the health professionals involved, as well as cases of verbal and physical violence. Purpose The purpose of the study was to investigate the existence of verbal violence in the operating rooms of three general hospitals in the Peloponnese region of Greece. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted of health professionals (physicians and nurses) employed in the operating rooms of three general hospitals in the Peloponnese region. For the data collection, the Verbal Abuse Scale questionnaire (VAS) was used. A total number of 80 questionnaires were self-completed and collected. The statistical analysis was performed with the SPSS Statistics software v.25 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY). Results Regarding the frequency of verbal violence faced by health professionals, 36.8% of physicians stated that they experience verbal violence once a year whereas more than 20% of nurses reported that such incidents occur more than once a month (p=0.148). For the physicians, the abuser was usually their supervisor, while for the nurses, a physician. The majority of physicians stated that they felt mainly anger (2.94 ± 1.35), disgust (2.58 ± 1.54), and sadness/hurt (2.35 ± 1.37) after the verbal abuse, whereas most of the nurses felt anger (3.49 ± 1.39), disgust (3.05 ± 1.52) and frustration (2.95 ± 1.47). Conclusion Nurses are more often the victims of verbal abuse than physicians and are more likely to feel frustrated after experiencing verbal abuse. Gradual change to the organizational culture is an important measure to stop the occurrence of such incidents.