###### Abstract  
Workplace violence (WV) is defined as an intentional misuse of power, including threats of physical force against another person or group, which can cause physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social harm. The aim of this study was to describe the prevalence, characteristics and consequences of WV in a sample of Italian teachers. Our hypothesis was that WV impacted workplace satisfaction, self-efficacy and burnout. A self-administered questionnaire was answered by 331 teachers. A total of 192 (58%) subjects reported experiencing a physical or psychological form of WV. Overall, findings confirmed our hypothesis: teacher victims of WV showed high levels of burnout--both in terms of exhaustion (F = 3.96; p = 0.04) and disengagement (F = 5.85; p = 0.016), lower levels of workplace satisfaction (F = 13.24; p < 0.001) and regulatory emotional self-efficacy--especially for negative emotions (F = 5.45; p = 0.02) compared with teachers who have never experienced WV. This investigation suggests the importance of preventing WV and offering support to victims. Doing so will increase teachers' ability to manage and cope with violent behavior. Prevention and intervention may also decrease serious consequences in relation to victims' wellbeing, and improve the general stability of the classroom, as well as motivation and academic commitment. workplace violence; teachers; burnout; self-efficacy +
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colleagues [14] found that among 764 teachers, 22.4% were exposed to harassment at least once in the previous 12 months. Findings from a report by [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON] and [PERSON] [15] on school crime and safety in the US showed that, in 2007/2008, some 289,600 teachers declared that they had been threatened with injury by a student from school during the previous 12 months. The teacher victims comprised 7.5% of the sample: among the participants, 88,500 were male victims (representing 9.3% of male participants in the survey), while 201,600 were female victims (representing 6.1% of female participants in the survey). These percentages were higher than those in the 2003/2004 survey, in which 127,500 teachers reported an injury (3.4% of all participants; 2.6% among male participants and 3.7% among female participants). Similar findings were found by [PERSON] and [PERSON] [9,10] and [PERSON] and colleagues [16]. In their investigation involving 215 teachers, [PERSON] and [PERSON] [9,10] found that 25.6% of the teachers reported that they had occasionally been subjected to bullying by students. In their investigation involving 6450 education workers, [PERSON] and colleagues [16] found that 7.8% reported being physically assaulted and 28.9% reported a nonphysical WV event. [PERSON] and colleagues' [6] findings revealed that among 3000 survey participants, 80% reported at least one incident of victimization (with 94% of victims reporting that the perpetrator was a student). Similarly, [PERSON] and colleagues [17] found that among 686 teachers, 84.8% were involved in some form of violence during the course of their professional lives. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [18] found that among a sample of 400 teachers, 35.4% reported verbal violence in the last 30 days, 12.4% reported property damage and 4.9% reported physical violence. [PERSON] [19] found that among 900 teachers, 24.1% experienced episodes of emotional violence, with lower percentages reporting episodes of verbal (14.7%), physical (6.3%) and sexual (4.6%) violence. In most cases, it appears that the perpetrator of WV is a student or a student's parent [20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27], while other perpetrators include colleagues and supervisors [28]. The consequences of WV in teachers include physical and emotional injury, such as distress, exhaustion, depression [29], dissatisfaction, disengagement [18, 29, 30], turnover and intention of leaving the profession. At an organizational level, WV may negatively impact an organizational climate and culture [31].