Effects of work status and client characteristics on type II workplace violence experience among nurses and midwives in Sub-Saharan Africa

Introduction & Background: Violence against and among healthcare workers in the healthcare setting is an increasing problem worldwide. The focus of the paper is on type II workplace violence, where the victim being physically hurt or assaulted is the service provider and the offender is recipient of service. This paper aims at understanding the prevalence of type II workplace violence among nurses and midwives in countries in sub Saharan Africa (primarily Nigeria, Tanzania, and Kenya) through understanding the association between work status, schedule, client characteristics, and participants demographics, in relation to type II workplace violence. Methods: To analyze the association between work status, schedule, client characteristics, and participants demographics, in relation to type II workplace violence responses from 756 participants were analyzed using chi square, t-test, Mann-Whitney U test , and logistic regression. Results: Participants who experienced type II workplace violence (physically hurt/assaulted) were more likely to work over 40 hours per week, whose job required more than 80% direct patient care, and were exposed to risky client population, and worked in different countries where the site increased exposure risk. Conclusion: Organizational level interventions in relation to work status and schedule are critical for minimizing exposure to type II workplace violence, in addition, more thorough assessment of client characteristics is needed for better prevention of type II workplace violence. However, the results have to be interrupted with caution in relation to exposure to type II, as other variables could be associated with the phenomena.