Background:

Violence in the health sector is a big problem and it has serious consequences. The prevalence of clinical violence suffered by Spanish physiotherapists is unknown. The objective of this paper was to create and validate a tool in order to detect cases of sexual, physical and psychological and/or verbal violence in the Spanish physiotherapists.

Methods:

A questionnaire was elaborated according to the available bibliography. It was analyzed by a group of six physiotherapists in charge of the Union observation and management of violence or from Me-Too Fisio movement. Finally, a pilot test was carried out on a convenience sample of fourteen physiotherapists.

Results:

The questionnaire obtained includes questions about the facts suffered by the professionals in this discipline, as well as the main data on the profile of the aggressor (sex, age, mental condition...), the contexts where violence is more prevalent (clinical field, size of the population where the center is located...), and the main characteristics of the professional who suffers it (sex, age, professional experience...). Moreover, information about formal and informal strategies used to deal with violence and perception of its impact, will be assessed.

Conclusions:

The annual use of this tool will allow the exposure of this group of professionals to be assessed specifically and, also, to assess the evolution over time of each violence separately for providing direction for successful policies and training.

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