Occupational exposure to workplace violence among social workers: experiences and coping strategies

Social workers operate in emotionally demanding, high-risk settings that increase their exposure to workplace violence; however, their experiences remain insufficiently examined in Türkiye. This qualitative study used a descriptive phenomenological approach to examine experiences of violence, psychosocial consequences, and coping strategies among 22 social workers. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using a phenomenologically grounded thematic procedure. Findings indicated that verbal and psychological violence was normalised in daily practice, whereas physical violence and threats were particularly associated with fieldwork and home visits. Participants described covert sexual violence involving gazes, innuendos, and boundary violations without physical contact; what they termed economic violence, linked to low wages and heavy workloads; organisational violence involving managerial pressure and workplace bullying; and structural conditions involving role ambiguity and constraints on professional autonomy. Participants reported experiences consistent with burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and emotional numbing. Without adequate institutional support, individual coping and normalisation helped sustain practice while leaving unsafe organisational conditions unchallenged. Participants’ accounts show workplace violence as a multidimensional problem embedded in the institutional conditions of social work practice in Türkiye, requiring organisational and structural responses rather than individual coping alone.