Hot och våld i arbetslivet : - En kvalitativ studie om socialsekreterares utsatthet

The purpose of this study was to investigate how social services workers describe, the risk of being exposed to threats and violence in their profession. Six social services workers were interviewed, four from the Welfare Office in a major city and two from the Child and Family Services in a minor city. Results showed that the majority of social services workers consider themselves exposed in their profession, meaning that they feel there's a risk of a violent or threatening situation occurring in their work situation. All interviewees had experiences from some sort of threat or violence in a work related context and they attested that non-personal assaults, such as threats made through telephone, email and answering machines are more common than verbal assaults made in personal meetings. Being prepared and listening to ones intuition is a way of dealing with exposure when meeting with a client. By working in pairs you can decrease the risk of being exposed in a violent/threatening situation. Several of the interviewees pointed out that they are more tolerant to certain clients in order to cope with their work situation