The relationship between anxiety levels and workplace violence and a research

Generally anxiety is an emotional state or a reaction that occurs when people sense a danger that will affect their normal lives. This emotional state which also comes with worry has a significant effect on the individual's emotional state of their future lives. One of the situations that can cause anxiety for people is workplace violence. According to the definition from the European Commission, workplace violence is a total of the abuse, harassment, threatening acts and it is a physical attack that threats the health, safety and well-being of the employee's environments where the employees are involved in their work. The service sector has professions that contain excessive risk factors which increases workplace violence. Motorcycle couriers are also among the professions that highly at risk of workplace violence in the service sector. It is the fact that motorcycle couriers are in contact with the public, they carry cash, work at too early or too late hours are some of the factors that increase the risk of workplace violence. In this study, workplace violence which is experienced by professional motorcycle couriers are determined and its effects on anxiety levels are examined. In the study, the mixed research method is used, data is collected by using the State-Trait Anxiety Levels Scale which is developed by Spielberger and translated to Turkish by Öner and Le Comte with a semi-structured interview. It was determined that the motorcycle couriers in our example are subjected to physical violence and harassment and threats within the scope of psychological violence. It has been found that the perpetrators of workplace violence are generally drivers and customers in traffic. It was found that motorcycle couriers who were exposed to workplace violence have high state of trait anxiety levels.