Workplace Violence and Its Association with Psychoactive Substance-Related Disorders Among Health Workers in a Tertiary Health Care Setting in Nigeria

Introduction

Workplace violence is a growing problem in the health care setting and has been found to be associated with physical injuries as well as psychopathologic sequelae. However, despite the fact that several studies conducted in the developed western countries have repeatedly shown that workplace violence is associated with deleterious effects on the wellbeing of affected health care workers, there is a dearth of scientific information regarding this phenomenon in Nigeria. In addition, there are also little or no research efforts on the associated specific mental disorders using a diagnostic psychometric instrument. It is therefore imperative to generate the necessary empirical information so as to have a local or national template on which policy guidelines for the prevention of workplace violence in the health care setting can be based. The study aim is to evaluate the prevalence and pattern of workplace violence and its association with psychoactive substance use disorders among health workers of a tertiary health care setting in Nigeria.

Methods

A stratified random sampling technique was used to recruit the study participants. Each participant was administered a socio-demographic questionnaire, the Workplace Violence Questionnaire (WVQ) and the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) modules on Alcohol abuse and dependence and Non-alcohol psychoactive substance use disorders.

Results

Out of the 380 questionnaires administered, 361(95%) were appropriately-filled and returned. All the respondents were within the age range 22 – 60 years, with mean age of 36.40 years. The prevalence of workplace violence was 39.9% while verbal abuse was the most prevalent form of violence (31.9%). The prevalence of psychoactive substance-related disorders was 2.2%. In addition, respondents’ experience of violence in the workplace was significantly associated with psychoactive substance-related disorders (yates corrected χ2= 9.90, p<0.01). The factors associated with workplace violence were age (p=0.020), gender (p=0.048), work setting (p<0.001), previous workplace violence training (p=0.017) and level of worry about workplace violence (p<0.001).

Conclusion

This study showed that workplace violence is prevalent in our health care setting and is associated with potentially severe psychological sequalae on the victims. These observations call for an urgent need to formulate programmes aimed at preventing workplace violence and managing its mental health consequences among the health workers.