The effect of mass communication tools on violence in health: A comparison of the perspectives of patients and health workers in the perspective of social learning theory

Mass media are the tools we are most exposed to in our daily lives. These tools, which are with us at every point of our lives, have almost become the sixth basic sense organ of people. For this reason, these tools, which are always present in people's daily lives, where information is shared and interaction is experienced, have a high impact on individuals. Mass media can create certain attitudes and behavioral patterns in individuals with the messages and content they present, reinforce or change existing attitudes and behaviors, and thus spread them. This study, which was written by taking this aspect of mass media into consideration, aims to analyze the effect of mass media on violence in health. Within the scope of the study, both the 180 white code data made between 01.01.2014 and 31.12.2021 in Elâzığ Fırat University Hospital were retrospectively analyzed and a survey was conducted on the personnel working in the same hospital and the patients receiving health services. The findings obtained in the survey application were analyzed comparatively. The questionnaire form, which was prepared separately for each group and consisted of a total of 38 questions, was administered to 400 healthcare professionals working at Elâzığ Fırat University Hospital and 400 patients receiving healthcare services from the same institution between July 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021 by random (chance-drawing) method, and a total of 800 survey data were obtained. SPSS analysis program was used in the analysis of both white code data and survey data. When the findings obtained from the survey conducted in the research are evaluated; The main findings are that the tendency towards violence in society and health institutions is increasing, the majority of health care workers have been subjected to violence at least once during their professional life, the majority of patients see violence against health care workers as unfair, but they think that some health care workers deserve violence, health care workers are generally exposed to violence in emergency services, polyclinics, family physicians and 112 emergency health services where patient circulation is intense, health care workers can be exposed to verbal, physical and psychological types of violence and among these types of violence, verbal violence is more common. Among the reasons for violence against healthcare workers, it was found that giving negative news to patients and their relatives, communication problems, treatment dissatisfaction, waiting too long during examination, lack of social tolerance and mass media coverage of health-related mistakes were highly effective, physical violence against healthcare workers was mostly inflicted on male employees, verbal violence against healthcare workers was mostly inflicted on specialist physicians, doctor and nurse occupational groups, those with undergraduate and postgraduate education were more likely to be subjected to verbal violence, verbal or physical violence did not show a significant difference according to the duration of employment in the profession, those who did not receive training on communication in the last year were more likely to be subjected to physical violence, female patients and those with young and middle age were more prone to violence in health. In addition, as the main starting point of the study, it is among the most important findings of the study that the inclusion of the content of violence in health in mass media increases violence in health, violence in health presented in mass media creates role models for patients and their relatives, the inclusion of the way violence in health is applied in mass media is taken as an example by people who have the potential to commit violence, people are desensitized and violence is normalized with the demonstration of violence in health in mass media, television, internet and social media have a high impact on increasing violence against health workers. In the analysis of 180 white code data of Elazığ Fırat University Hospital evaluated retrospectively; violence was reported mostly in 2017 (23%), violence occurred mostly during working hours (52.2%), female employees (63%) were exposed to violence more, the occupational group of physicians (31.1%) was exposed to violence more, and verbal violence (69%) was the most common type of violence, It was concluded that violence was mostly perpetrated by patients' relatives (83%) and men (75%), the rate of detention after the violence was very low (5%), violence was mostly perpetrated in the emergency department (35%) and there was a significant difference between the type of violence perpetrated and gender. In the light of all these findings, our assumptions about the effect of mass media on violence in health, which was the main starting point of the study, that mass media has a function of increasing violence in health, that mass media creates role models for violence in health, that mass media normalizes violence in health and desensitizes individuals to violence in health have been confirmed.