Introduction/Objective. Health workers are five times more likely to be exposed to workplace violence than other workers. The goal of this paper is to present an overview of the situation related to violence against health workers and others employed in the Republic of Serbia, before amendments to the Criminal Law of the Republic of Serbia by the end of2024. Methods. This cross-section study was carried out over a three-month period, from 10.07.2024 to 10.10.2024, in the form of an online survey which was purposefully made, voluntarily completed by125 respondents. Results. The survey showed that 74.4% of participants had experienced violence. Psychological abuse dominated. Verbal abuse was experienced among 68.8% of workers, psychological-nonverbal by 64.4% and physical violence by12.7% participants in the survey. There was no statistically important difference in experienced workplace violence in relation to sex, place of residence, nationality, marital status, number of children or level of education, type of specialization, type of institution, presence of security staff, activity on social networks, number of their workplaces and trade union membership. Workplace violence decreased as the length of service grew. Managers experienced less violence. The dominant cause of violence in general hospitals is the problem in communication and a patient’s psychological disorder, while in health centers it is the non-acceptance of organizational limitations. Conclusion. We provide proposals that would contribute to the overall prevention of violence at workplaces and to protect workers in health.
Radulovic et al. (Thu,) studied this question.