ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health

Sec. Occupational Health and Safety

Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1560096

This article is part of the Research TopicPublic Health Challenges in Post-Soviet Countries During and Beyond COVID-19, Volume IIView all 8 articles

Workplace violence against healthcare workers in the Republic of Moldova during COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study

Provisionally accepted
Elena CiobanuElena Ciobanu1*Dumitru ChepteaDumitru Cheptea1Svetlana CociuSvetlana Cociu1Patricia Maria MargaPatricia Maria Marga2Serghei CebanuSerghei Cebanu1Diana DulfDiana Dulf2Corrine Peek-AsaCorrine Peek-Asa3
  • 1Nicolae Testemiţanu State University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Chișinău, Moldova
  • 2Department of Public Health, Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
  • 3University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, United States

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Objectives: This study aimed to explore healthcare providers' experiences with workplace violence cases before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and to identify the prevalence of risk factors. Methods: A cross-sectional study design was conducted among healthcare professionals from six hospitals in Moldova during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study included 189 medical professionals and clinical support staff. Results: This study surveyed 189 healthcare professionals, mostly aged 40-49 (31.7%), with physicians (43.9%) and nurses (42.3%) being predominant. Departments most represented were infectious disease (28.3%), emergency (21.4%), and intensive care (16.1%). Violence prevention training was lacking (83.6%). Hallways (38.5%) and poorly visible areas (34.3%) were leading environmental risk factors. Workplace violence affected 43.1% of participants. Physical assault and verbal threats have a strong correlation before and during the pandemic (r=0.654; r=0.714), but changes weren't statistically significant. Female staff had lower odds of experiencing serious violence (OR=0.43, p=0.013). Workers with 11+ years' experience faced fewer incidents, while those with 2-5 years faced a higher risk. Conclusions: Workplace violence remained prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic, with statistically significant variation over time, pointing the need for ongoing prevention efforts.

Keywords: Workplace Violence, COVID-19 pandemic, prevention, Healthcare workers, professional risk factor, security and training

Received: 13 Jan 2025; Accepted: 20 May 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Ciobanu, Cheptea, Cociu, Marga, Cebanu, Dulf and Peek-Asa. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Elena Ciobanu, Nicolae Testemiţanu State University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Chișinău, Moldova

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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