Table 2.

Characteristics of the included studies focusing on violence among oral healthcare workers

Author, country, year	Study duration (months)	Sample	Sample size	Response rate (%)	Percentage of violence (%)	Demographics: Age (years) and sex	Type of violence	Action and policy
Garvin and Sledge, USA, 1992 [6]	2	Dental hygienists	650	72.6	26.3	Age mean = 28.9, 100% females	Sexual harassment	Action: terminated employment, legal action, no action, reported incident. No policy
Pennington et al., USA, 2000 [7]	NA	Dental hygienists	540	53	54	Mean of age 40, 99% females	Sexual harassment	Action: File formal complaints. No policy
Garbin et al., Brazil, 2009 [5]	NA	Dental students	254	82	15	Age range:19–32 years (mean = 22), 65.9% females and 34.1% males	Sexual harassment (15%)	Action: Inform the mentor or do nothing. No policy
Steadman et al., United Kingdom, 2009 [13]	12	Postgraduate hospital dentists	227	60	25	NA	Bullying (25%), threat (8.2%), verbal abuse (8.2%), sexual harassment (7.5%), property damage (1.5%)	Action: Inform the mentor. No policy
Azodo et al., Nigeria, 2011 [1]	12	Dental professionals	175	78.9	31.9	NA	Bullying and physical abuse (22%), loud shouting (50%), sexual harassment (6.8%), threat (22.7%)	Action: NA. No policy
Premadasa et al., Sri Lanka, 2011 [14]	9	Junior dental students	72	91	50	Age range: 20–23, 67.7% females and 32.3% males	Loud shouting (50%), physical abuse (4.6%), sexual harassment (11.5%), threat, verbal abuse (58.7%)	Action: Do nothing, inform friend or family, inform the mentor. No policy
McCombs et al., USA, 2018 [15]	6	Dental hygienists	240	64	24	Age range: 20 – > 60, 97% females and 3% males	Workplace bullying, opinions and views ignoring, and unmanageable workloads	Action: NA. No policy
Ullah et al., Pakistan, 2018 [16]	6	Dental interns	135	92.59	36.8%	Mean age 24.0 ± 1.3, 69.6% females and 30.4% males	Workplace bullying, unmanageable workload, and being ignored or excluded	Action: Only 14.5% reported a complaint. No policy