Workplace violence against health care workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Introduction: During the COVID-19 pandemic, Health Care Workers (HCWs) have been at the frontline against the disease and have direct contact with patients and their companions, so they are exposed to all sorts of Workplace Violence (WPV). The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of WPV against HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: This study was conducted according to the PRISMA guideline, and its protocol was registered at the PROSPERO under the code of CRD42021285558. Articles were obtained from data resources such as Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, Science Direct, Google Scholar, and Embase. A literature search was conducted from the beginning of 2020 to the end of December 2021. Meta-analysis was conducted using the Random effects model, and the I(2) index was used to check the heterogeneity. Results: In this study, 1,054 articles were initially obtained during the primary search, of which 13 were finally entered in the meta-analysis. According to the results of the meta-analysis, the prevalence of physical and verbal WPV were 10.75% (95% CI: 8.20–13.30, I(2) = 97.8%, P = 0 < 001) and 45.87% (95% CI: 36.8–54.93, I(2) = 99.6%, P = 0 < 001), respectively. The overall prevalence of WPV was obtained, 45.80% (95% CI: 34.65–56.94, I(2) = 99.8%, P = 0 < 001) were reported. Conclusion: The results of the present study showed that the prevalence of WPV against HCWs was relatively high during the COVID-19 pandemic; nevertheless, it was lower compared to the area prior to the pandemic. Therefore, HCWs need essential training to reduce stress and increase resilience. Also, considering organizational interventions (including policies to ensure that HCWs report WPV to their supervisors, increasing staffing per patient, and installing systems for HCWs to call for immediate assistance) can increase the resilience HCWs.