Burak METE, Hakan DEMİRHİNDİ, Ayşe İNALTEKİN

The effect of COVID-19 Pandemic on domestic violence and mobbing among health workers

This study aimed to reveal the relationship between mobbing and domestic violence in healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-sectional study included 399 health workers working in primary, secondary, or tertiary health institutions in Adana in July 2021. In the questionnaire form applied to the individuals, they were asked to evaluate their exposure to and committing domestic violence and mobbing in the pre- and during the pandemic period. The mean age of 399 healthcare professionals participating in the study was 35.21±7.72 (min 21-max 65), with 67.9% being female, and 62.7% physicians. It was observed that 6.5% of health workers were exposed to physical, 16.3% to verbal, 11.8% to emotional, 7.5% to economic, and 1.5% to sexual domestic violence in an increased rate during the pandemic period. New-onset violence exposure was assessed in 1-2.8% of participants. Exposure to mobbing was observed to have increased by 40% during the pandemic period although the effect of the pandemic on mobbing exposure was found to be statistically small. The level of domestic verbal (20.9%), emotional (17.2%), and economic violence (8.6%) was found to be significantly higher in individuals with increased exposure to mobbing during the pandemic period. The risk of committing any domestic violence behavior was found to be 4.77 times higher in health workers with increased exposure to mobbing. The increase in workplace psychological violence in healthcare workers increases the risk of committing any domestic violence. Exposure to mobbing causes an increase in the perpetration of domestic verbal and emotional violence.

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