Introduction: Nurses are the first and most available personnel throughout the hospital especially in stressful situations such as accidents, deaths, waiting to visit a physician or transfer of patients to a ward or another hospital. Therefore, they are exposed to more abuse, violence or aggressive behavior from patients or their companions besides the verbal and non verbal aggression they sometimes face from hospital staff. Previous studies showed variable violence rates, e.g., about a third of nurses are physically assaulted and injured, a quarter are sexually harassed and about two-thirds are non-physically assaulted, with these rates varying by setting and world region. Aim of the work: To assess the magnitude of violence against nurses in Upper Egypt, with exploring the reporting, consequences and impact of these aggression incidents. Materials and Methods: Nurses working at different hospitals in Beni-suef hospitals, Egypt, were asked to fill out a self-administered questionnaire that inquired about their socio-demographics, frequency of exposure to violence incidents during working lifetime, and last year's external and internal aggression. Results: The response rate was 70%. Throughout their career, 92.8% of nurses reported that they were exposed to workplace violence. Verbal and psychological aggression incidents were the most common types of violence our nurses were exposed to. During the last year, 86.6% and 42.2% of nurses reported exposure to external and internal violence incidents, respectively.
Generally, stress, anger, fear and depression were the most reported consequences after exposure to violence. More than half of the bullied nurses reported that exposure to workplace violence has negative effects on their performance at work. However, about only one third of the violence incidents were reported to administration. Conclusions: This study identified the prevalence rates of all types of aggression the nurses faced during their career and also the last year from both external and internal sources. We also detected the emotional drawbacks of violence on nurses and the impact of different violent incidents on their job quality. Reporting and its consequences were cited clearly, however much study is needed for detecting the causes of under reporting and the most effective methods of stopping aggression directed at nurses.