Sexual harassment among health workers and students in Turkey

Abstract

Purpose: 1- To assess the dimensions of sexual harassment experienced in health sector and health education in Turkey 2- To reveal the perceptions, attitudes and behaviors of Turkish health workers and health students toward sexual harassment. Design: Descriptive and Cross-sectional Materials: The study was performed with 96 health workers from three different hospitals including a university, a Ministry of Health public hospital and a maternity hospital and, 99 students of nursing and midwifery education in one university. In a special room and by using face to face method, total 195 attendants filled in a questionnaire developed by the researches in accordance with literature. Frequency test, percentage distribution test and, chi square test were used to assess the data. Findings: In this study, 20.8% of health workers and 10.1% of health students were found to be exposed to sexual harassment. “Unnecessary touch and unwelcome contact” prevailed among the health workers (60%) whereas “staring at repetitively or in a suggestive manner” prevailed among the health students (70%). Sexual harassment was found to occur frequently within “working hours/daytime” among health workers. Health students reported that they exposed to the harassment during “watch duty/night shift” mostly. Conclusions: Health workers and nursing and midwifery students were determined to be subjected to sexual harassment in Turkey. Although 80% of the health workers and 88% of the health students considered that the event should be notified to the authorities, only 20% of the attendants notified it to the relevant departments.