The effect of violence against doctors on professional commitment: The example of Kocaeli

Health sector is a field in which workplace violence is prevalent. Violence effect all healthcare staff notably doctors in negative way. There are 135 616 doctors in Turkey. If it is thought as 573 patients per doctor, it can be understood how big threat is the violence that surrounds not only healthcare staff but the whole society. Also, only a few of violence applied to doctors are notified and reported. So actual statistical datas regarding this subject, do not represent the total of violence. Occupational commitment expresses the interest, emotional attitude and behaviours of a person towards his occupation. Occupational commitment is an important concept in terms of continuity of person to his occupation. The aim of this study is to identify if the violence that doctors are exposed, affects their commitment to their occupation or not. Although the basic hypothesis is this, 5 main group hypotheses and 15 sub hypotheses were tested. In this scope, the study was applied within the borders of Kocaeli province. The reason of choosing health sector is healthcare staff is exposed to violence 16 times more than the other sector staff (Kingma, 2001: 129). 2011 doctors form the population and 200 doctors form the sampling of study. "Violence Towards Doctors Questionnaire Form" and "Occupational Commitment Scale" developed by Meyer et. al (1993) were used as a research technique. As a result, it was obtained that doctors are exposed to high incidence of violence and they suffer from exposition anxiety so this affects their commitment to their occupation in negative way.