Introduction:

Work related violence in clinic environments has important negative impacts on healthcare professionals and the care they provide. Being a relevant topic, it has been evidenced that the greater work related violence occurs in female prevalent environments.

Objective:

To gain understanding on the work related violence experienced by nursing professionals in a hospital in the city of Valdivia, Chile, in 2017.

Method:

The study follows the interpretative paradigm, using a qualitative methodology, and a content analysis based on the proposals of Bardin. The sample was by-intention. An in-depth interview was conducted on 10 nursing professionals who had experienced work related violence. All participants gave their informed consent. The questions were mainly directed to know barriers and facilitators of violence.

Results:

Four categories emerged from the analysis: a) Perception of the organizational climate associated to leadership styles; b) contextual and attitude-related barriers associated to the violent behaviors (with the following subcategories: lack of collaboration, work overload, and lack of processes and preventive measures to conflict resolutions); c) Forms of violence and harassment (with the following subcategories: to create work-related rumors, prosecution, to retain crucial information, and unauthorization); and c) Compassion fatigue. The phenomenon is related to the biomedical model.

Conclusions:

The problem of violence responds to the contextual determinants of the organization, and this factors do not depend exclusively on nursing professionals. Therefore, it is imperative to identify, address, and prevent all work related violence triggers.