Affiliations: Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental
Health, The University of Texas School of Public Health, San Antonio Campus,
San Antonio, TX, USA | Centro de Investigación en Salud Poblacional,
Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, Cuernavaca, Morelos, México | Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental
Health, The University of Texas School of Public Health, Houston Campus, TX, USA
Note: [] Address for correspondence: Dr. David Gimeno, Southwest Center
for Occupational and Environmental Health, The University of Texas School of
Public Health, San Antonio, TX, 78229, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: Objective: Low levels of safety climate and training have been
associated with higher occurrence of occupational-related health outcomes;
workplace violence and verbal abuse could be considered an early indicator of
escalating psychological workplace violence. We examined whether low level of
safety factors were associated with a higher prevalence of verbal abuse at the
workplace. Methods: We used data from a cross-sectional survey
administered among a stratified random sample of 1,000 employees from 10 of the
29 public hospitals in Costa Rica. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence
intervals (95%CI) were calculated using survey logistic regression models to
estimate the association between safety factors and verbal abuse from the
following sources: administrators, supervisors, patients, patients' relatives
and coworkers. Results: There was a high prevalence of verbal abuse among
the healthcare workforce from both external (i.e., patients and patients'
relatives) and internal workplace sources (i.e., coworkers, supervisors and
administrators). A low level of safety climate was associated with verbal abuse
from all sources with associations ranging from verbal abuse from
administrators (OR=6.07; 95%CI: 2.05–17.92) to verbal abuse from
patients (OR=2.24; 95%CI: 1.23–4.09). Conclusion: These results highlight the need to address organizational characteristics of the workplace
that may increase the risk of verbal abuse for the future development of
prevention interventions in this setting.
