Work-related violence and its integration into existing surveys

According to the report, there is no uniform definition of violence. This is due to the different perceptions of violence in different cultures and the fact that the borderline of acceptable behaviour is vague. However, violence is generally understood as incidents of force or power inflicted by humans on each other. The WHO defines violence as the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual against oneself, another person, or a group or community that either results in, or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm or deprivation. Gender-based violence occurs against the will of the victim as a result of power imbalances.

The reality is that violence is not always carried out in public and many forms of violence cannot be observed from the outside. It is therefore important to discover these hidden forms of violence and reveal them through surveys that capture violence that is not necessarily reflected in police reports and official crime statistics.

Workplace violence includes:

• Physical: assault, physical abuse, murder
• Psychological: threats and verbal abuse, psychological abuse, bullying, mobbing, harassment
• Sexual: harassment, unwanted attention, stalking, rape.

Types of perpetrators:

• Internal: colleagues and supervisors
• External: customers, clients, patients, students or strangers