Workplace Violence: An Extensive Issue for Nurses in Pakistan: A Qualitative Investigation

The objective of the present study was to examine the incidences of violence during nurses’ careers and their impacts on their work life in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The current article highlights workplace violence toward nurses as a serious issue in Pakistan, which is almost an unexplored area as data are scarce. Individual interviews were conducted, applying a qualitative approach for getting the in-depth knowledge about the subject. Grounded theory method was used for data analysis and NVIVO-10 was used for information processing. Majority of the nurses experienced violence in the previous 6 months of their career. Nurses also confirmed that verbal abuse was witnessed and although experienced frequently, they did not report it, as they believed that reporting was useless and no action would be taken. Most nurses reported that due to violence, they experience stress, low work performance, low job satisfaction, high absenteeism, and high turnover intentions. The results illustrated a clear trend of an increasing number of violence incidents toward nurses. The findings of the present study possibly will assist hospital administration to manage and reduce violence at workplace.