ABSTRACT:
The study objective is to assess the awareness of the hospital X staff regarding workplace violence and its management. Methods. A cross-sectional survey was conducted at the hospital X in Lithuania between October and December 2024, with 366 participants (85.5% response rate). The Z criterion was applied to evaluate the hypothesis of variable dependence. The Spearman correlation coefficient (r) was calculated to determine the relationship between ordinal variables. Results. 76.7% of the respondents correctly indicated the definition of violence in the workplace. Those who did, more often had lower than university education, were single, earned less than 1000 euros per month or had more than 25 years of work experience (P<0.05). 99.4% of the respondents indicated that psychological violence could occur in the workplace. 90.1% of the respondents said they were able to recognize violence in the workplace. 67.7% of the respondents are familiar with the violence and harassment prevention policy, and 64.5% know where to seek help if experienced violence. 31.3% of the respondents agreed that a lot of attention is given to prevention of violence in the workplace, 24.9% said that employees are involved in the creation of violence prevention policy. 23.6% of study participants indicated that they were informed about the violence in the workplace prevention and manifestation when hired, and 27.5% stated that the information about prevention of violence in the workplace is renewed yearly. More frequent information about the prevention and occurrence of violence in the workplace provided to study participants had a correlation with better education (r=0.221), higher salary (r=0.207), and longer employment (r=0.270, P<0.05). Conclusion. Although most employees at X hospital demonstrated an accurate understanding of workplace violence, there is still a lack of sufficient information dissemination and employee participation in shaping prevention policies for violence and harassment.