However, only 16pc of the victims reported the cases to authorities, either because they did not trust the Bahraini system or had no faith in the implementation of deterrent punishment.

The research also showed that although 80pc of the nurses surveyed indicated knowledge of existing laws to hold the perpetrators accountable, 46pc said the deterrent systems were ineffective.

The study was conducted by a team of medical students at the AGU University, Salmaniya and 345 nurses were interviewed.

Final year medical student Sayed Al Musawi, who headed the nine-member team, presented the results at the Conference of World Organisation of Family Doctors, held in Poland in April this year.

“The study was conducted among nurses in the public sector as it was more relevant, with the number of patients much higher in the government hospitals,” Mr Al Musawi told the GDN.

“There are around 1,300 nurses in the public sector and we sent out 400 survey forms.

“The representative sample of 345 nurses, we believe, was good enough to come up with the conclusion, as the response rate was very high and the survey included only female nurses.”

The perpetrators of violence were patients, medical doctors, visitors, criminals and others, in that order, according to the survey.

“Our study concluded that 64pc of the nurses have experienced some form of verbal, physical or sexual violence at work, with verbal abuse being the most common type of violence (76.41pc) experienced by nurses.

“Non-Bahraini nurses are more prone to violence and the main perpetrators were patients (61.1pc), hospital visitors (54.4pc) and medical doctors (23.4pc).”

Mr Al Musawi pointed out that though the rate of violence against nurses was high in Bahrain, it was less compared with neighbouring countries.

“In countries like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the rate is 80pc to 90pc,” he said.

The 22-year-old from A’ali and his team, under the supervision of senior medic Dr Fawzi Al Amin, completed the study in the summer of 2016.

The research found the rate of reporting the violence was low in Bahrain, but high in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

“In Bahrain only 16pc of the nurses reported the instances of violence, while in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait it was over 40pc.

“The likely reason suggested by the research team was that the nurses (in Bahrain) did not trust the reporting system, or did not believe in the implementation of deterrent punishments.

“Although 80pc of the surveyed nurses indicated awareness of existing laws to hold perpetrators accountable, 46pc reported that the deterrent systems are ineffective.”

The team attributed the spread of violence against nurses in the workplace to the pressures faced by hospitals due to auditors.