Violence against emergency service workers - a prospective analysis in rural and urban emergency service districts

Introduction: There are increasing media reports about violence against emergency service workers in Germany. However, the actual number of deployments involving experiences of violence in relation to the total number of deployments is unknown.Methods: The emergency service workers of eight rural and two urban emergency service districts prospectively documented all deployments with and without experiences over a total of four weeks in 2019.Results: In 93 (1.2 %) out of 7,793 deployments, 173 instances of violence occurred. Of these, 40.5 % were verbal, 24.9 % non-verbal, 24.3 % physical violence and 10.4 % other obstructions. Experiences of violence were more frequent on Saturdays than on any other days of the week (2.3 % vs. 0.5 - 1.4 %, p < 0.01). Ambulances staffed by emergency physicians experienced violence not as often as those without emergency physicians on board (0.5 % vs. 1.3 %, p < 0.05). The outbursts of violence were not correlated with the gender of the emergency service workers nor with the respective rural or urban emergency service district. Violence was most frequently committed by patients (77.9 %), alcohol or drug intoxication being the most frequent accompanying circumstance in 49.1 % of all cases. Altercations were more frequent in the evening / at night than during the day (70.5 % vs. 38.9 %, p < 0.01).Conclusions: Violence against emergency service workers occurred in slightly more than 1 % of urban and rural emergency deployments. Alcohol or drug intoxications were frequent accompanying circumstances with an accumulation on Saturdays. Emergency physicians were less frequently involved.