Incidence rate of physical and verbal violence inflicted by patient and their companions on the radiology department staff of educational hospitals of medical university, Kermanshah, 2017

Introduction: Regarding the increasing risk of violence toward employees in diagnostic and therapeutic centers, radiology staff members are often exposed to forms of violence through direct contact with patients and with many professional stresses. The aim of this study is to investigate the causes and incidence of violence against radiographers in radiology departments of educational centers and hospitals.

Materials and methods: In this descriptive-analytic study, violence incidence was investigated in all 121 radiographers working in radiology departments of educational centers of Kermanshah in 2016. Data were collected by a reliable and stable researcher-made questionnaire. Data analysis was also performed using descriptive statistics and T test and Chi-square tests by STATA 11 software.

Results: The results showed that 72.7% of radiographers had experienced violence in their work environment. Verbal violence (77.3%) was the most prevalent type where patient accompaniments were the most frequent cause of violence (54.7%), most of the violence incidents were at night shift (43.6%) and over-crowdedness was the most common cause of violence in the radiology department (21.0%). The verbal violence against radiographers younger than 40 was significantly higher (P = 0.04) than the age group above 40 years.

Conclusion: The incidence of verbal violence against radiographers in radiology departments is high which can be reduced by providing adequate human resource and equipment in radiology departments, re-training courses on the prevention and management of violent behavior and the suing the violent events against radiologists.