Workplace Violence Against Iranian Nurses: A Hybrid Concept Analysis

Background: Workplace violence is a widespread phenomenon with a cultural and context-based nature. Understanding the various dimensions of this phenomenon is crucial for developing effective interventions to prevent and manage workplace violence. Accordingly, the present study aimed to analyze the concept of workplace violence experienced by nurses in Iran. Methods: The concept was defined using Schwartz and Kim’s three-stage hybrid concept analysis method. In the theoretical phase, the literature was reviewed and analyzed using Walker and Avant’s approach, and in the fieldwork phase, 18 unstructured in-depth interviews were conducted with clinical nurses, and the collected data were analyzed using the conventional content analysis method. The participants were selected through purposive sampling, and the data were analyzed using Graneheim and Lundman’s approach. During the final analytical phase, the findings from the theoretical and fieldwork phases were integrated to provide a comprehensive definition of the concept of workplace violence. Results: Workplace violence against nurses involves a range of behaviors or actions that threaten human dignity and professional reputation with or without intention, which are applied in the workplace or related situations by the patient, caregiver, manager, or colleague, against an individual or group of nurses and is perceived as nurses’ exposure to physical violence, psychological violence, honour insult, or religious-ethnic insult, whether explicit or implicit, intermittent or continuous, and mild to severe. Conclusion: The results of this study can be utilized to develop a tool to measure workplace violence and design interventions to prevent and manage workplace violence.