Knowledge and Attitude Regarding Abuse and Domestic Violence among Emergency Nurses at Health Care Sector

Abstract

In the hospital settings emergency nurses are the first who come into contact with the patients and their relatives and keep close relationship with the patients. Therefore, she also has legal and professional duty to report that cases of abuse and domestic violence. So, that the emergency nurses should must have awareness and legal knowledge toward domestic violence and abuse. That's why they can provide appropriate medical, nursing, and legal services to these sufferers of domestic violence and abuse. The purpose of this study is to assess the knowledge and attitude of emergency nurses toward abuse and domestic violence in Mayo Hospital Lahore. A descriptive cross-sectional study design was used to assess the knowledge and attitude of emergency nurses toward abuse and domestic violence. Target population of the study is all nurses working in emergency department of Mayo Hospital Lahore that was 200 nurses. An inclusion criterion of the study is all charge nurses and head nurses working in emergency department of Mayo Hospital Lahore. Exclusion criteria of the study is student nurses and all the other nurses working in other than emergency department of Mayo Hospital Lahore. A convenient sampling technique was used to collect the data. The sample size was the 134 participants. Result of this study shows that emergency nurses' knowledge toward abuse and domestic violence reporting rate was low and some of the nurses even do not know either it is the duty of medical professional to report about abuse and domestic violence. The attitude of emergency nurses toward domestic violence sufferers, they say even if the domestic violence is in serious nature the sufferers should not run-away leaving kids at home. The results of this study show that the emergency nurses' reporting rate toward abuse and violence are low.