Population and methods

This was an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study, carried out from March to May 2019 in all departments of the Lichinga Provincial Hospital and at the Lichinga City Health Centre in the Niassa Province of Mozambique.
The methodological details are described in other article.3 This questionnaire survey collected self-reported information on VHCW in selected health care units in the 12 months preceding the survey date.
The study participants were recruited following a simple random sampling strategy. The study excluded HCW: who were on vacation or taking another type of leave; working at the study health unit for less than 12 months; who did not report any history of having suffered violence in the workplace in the past 12 months. Two hundred and sixty HCW were eligible to participate based on inclusion criteria.
The study was approved by the Institutional Committee on Bioethics in Health, Faculty of Medicine, Eduardo Mondlane University and Central Hospital of Maputo (registration number CIBS FM & HCM 097/2018).
Data were entered into SPSS 20.0. The analysis cross tabulated sex of the HCW with other categorical variables testing statistical significance with either Fisher Exact test, Pearson or likelihood ratio chi-square. Means were compared using ANOVA.