Workplace violence towards social workers: The Australian experience

Abstract

Workplace violence is common in health-related occupations that involve substantial contact with clients, such as nursing, general practice, pre-hospital care and emergency medicine. Research has also been conducted that explores violence in social work; however, the majority has emerged from the UK and USA, and is limited due to definitional shortcomings and the scope of violence. In Australia, there is a paucity of research that has explored the prevalence of violence in social work. Thus, the aim of the research was to determine the prevalence of six forms of workplace violence, and determine factors that may predict the occurrence of violence towards social workers. A questionnaire was d..