External aggressions to health personnel in health centers of primary care in the city of Ibarra

摘要

Introduction Although the events of aggression in the work affect practically all the sectors and categories of the working population, there are groups with greater risk of suffering the objective of this study is to determine the frequency and the types of aggression towards the health professionals of centers of primary care in the city of Ibarra. Materials and methods This is an exploratory study carried out in 181 medical professionals, nurses and nursing assistants. The study variables included sociodemographic characteristics of the persons attacked, as well as the type and characteristics of the aggression, which were described by means of frequencies and percentages. Results 66.9% of the participants reported assaults, of which 61.9% were verbal. The main aggressors were the patient or his relatives, women (61.2%), and people between 31 to 50 years (68, 6%). Discussion In a similar way to previous studies, in the present study it was observed that more than half of the participants have been victims of external aggressions in their workplace Conclusions The most frequent triggers were the delay in attention and the lack of resources . The high frequency of external aggressions in primary care health personnel requires establishing prevention, action and notification plans for these events.