Violence Against Health Care Providers in Tamale Metropolis

ABSTRACT

Background Violence in the healthcare environment is an underreported and a persistent issue that has been endured so long by healthcare providers. Violence against healthcare providers are increasing at an alarming rate around the world. Currently, little is known about violence against healthcare providers in Ghana, yet this information is essential to the success of effective healthcare delivery. The study sought to investigate the form of violence, victims, perpetrators and the way forward against these violence. Methods The study is a cross-sectional study which involved a total of 423 healthcare providers in three hospitals in the Tamale Metropolis; Tamale Teaching Hospital, Tamale Central Hospital and Tamale West Hospital. Healthcare providers completed questionnaires covering participants’ demographics, their experience(s) with violence against them, and the perpetrators of such violence, the cause and the effects of the violence on them. Descriptive statistics was used to summarize continuous variables such as age while categorical variables will be summarized into frequencies and proportions. The main statistical software used for the data analysis collected was STATA version 15. Results and Conclusion Healthcare providers experienced high incidence of both physical and verbal violence on a daily basis. Relatives of patients/clients and the clients are mostly the perpetrators of these violence. Healthcare providers such as nurses, midwives and pharmacists are among healthcare providers who often experience frequent violence. Some of the healthcare providers got injured from the physical violence. In order to curb a majority of these violence, healthcare providers must be encouraged to report all cases against them whether v intentional or not and hospitals must also boost their security to protect healthcare providers.