Legal Response of Physicians Towards Workplace Violence during COVID-19 Pandemic in Egypt: A Cross Sectional Study

Salem, Hanan; Nafad, Reham; Taha, Sarah

doi:10.21608/zjfm.2022.128014.1110

Legal Response of Physicians Towards Workplace Violence during COVID-19 Pandemic in Egypt: A Cross Sectional Study

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Forensic medicine and clinical toxicology department, Faculty of medicine, Ain shams university, Cairo, Egypt

² Department of Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University .Cairo. Egypt.

³ Department of Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University,Cairo.Egypt

10.21608/zjfm.2022.128014.1110

Abstract

Workplace violence (WPV) is defined by World Medical Association as “an international emergency that undermines the very foundations of health systems and impacts critically on patient’s health”. The physicians are specifically vulnerable for such acts from patients or even their relatives. WPV has detrimental effects on both health professionals and the quality of health care services administered. Aim: to highlight the problem of assault against doctors and their legal response towards it, generally in medical practice and specifically during COVID 19 pandemic. Methodology: A cross sectional study was done through anonymous self-structured internet-based questionnaire survey on 300 physicians. It included different data as regards sociodemographic data, occurrence of bullying, type of assault and response of the physician towards such assault. Results: About 55% of responders claimed previous exposure to verbal or physical violence, nearly 19% faced verbal violence and 14% faced physical violence ,about 15% notified head of the department while only 9.7% notified police. Almost 80% of the responders were not satisfied by actions taken after notification , and 23% were exposed to bullying due to working during Covid era. All responders (100%) believe that media affect how people deal with physicians. Conclusion: Workplace violence against doctors is escalating vigorously. Under-reporting and lack of security support are the main issues in solving this catastrophic health system problem.

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