Workplace violence in primary hospitals and associated risk factors: A cross‐sectional study

AIM: To investigate the characteristics of workplace violence at primary hospitals in Southeast China and identify associated risk factors. DESIGN: A cross‐sectional survey design was used for this work. METHODS: We distributed a workplace violence questionnaire among medical staff at primary hospitals in Southeast Zhejiang Province, China. The data were collected between December 2016 and December 2017. We analysed the categorical data by using the chi‐square test and expressed it as frequencies. The risk factors were analysed by using multiple logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: Among the 2,560 questionnaires, 1,842 (71.9%) medical staff indicated that they had experienced workplace violence. Verbal assault was the most common type, followed by physical and sexual assault. Furthermore, gender, age, marital status, education, technical position and number of hospital beds' numbers were independent risk factors.