Attitudes and behaviors of patient's relatives, who admitted to emergency service of Duzce University Hospital, towards violence in emergency service and related factors

Objectives: Violence targeting emergency department staff has significantly increased in recent years. It was aimed, in this study, to determine the required regulations to prevent violence in emergency departments, and make recommendations on these regulations. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted in Duzce University School of Medicine Emergency Department between March 2015 and August 2015. A questionnaire including 50 questions about the patient's triage code and the patient's relative's socio-demographic features, history of exposure to violence, and attitudes towards violence and using violence was applied to 383 patient relatives after taking informed consent. Results: The rate of persons who had committed violence against emergency department staff was 20.6 %. Violence was mostly committed in triage area, primarily in the form of verbal violence (93.7 %). And, the doctors was the most frequent group of victims of violence (68.3 %). One-third of respondents (33.1 %) believed that emergency department staff deserved the violence, and 98.8 % of respondents who had used violence against emergency department personnel consider their violent behavior was right. Seventeen point one percent of the respondents believed that all problems faced in the emergency departments can be solved with violence, and 39.1 % were thinking incidents of violence cannot be prevented. There was a significant positive relationship between exposure to violence by emergency department staff and committing violence against emergency department staff (r=0.541; p = 0.0001). Fifteen point one percent of the respondents stated that the emergency department staff deserve to be killed if a patient dies in the emergency department. Although it did not reach statistical significance as the level of education increased the rate of committing violence was decreased (p>0.05). There was not any statistically significant relationship between committing violence against emergency department staff and the patient's triage code, gender of the participant, having a registered gun, the degree of relationship to the patient, and having a psychiatric disorder (p>0.05). Discussion and Conclusion: Violence occurring in emergency departments became a very serious problem in recent years. In order to prevent incidents of violence, we have to accept that violence is a general social problem, and we, as the members of all segments of the society, should come together to solve the problem.