75% of family doctors abused by patient: study
Written by on March 12th, 2010 in Latest News.
Three-quarters of Canadian family doctors say they suffered at least one incident of major abuse at the hands of a patient, according to a new study.
The study, the first national look at the violence in doctor’s offices, was released Friday in the journal Canadian Family Physician.
‘One physician had his house burned down because of an mad of patient.’— Dr. Bo Miedema
Researchers randomly selected 3,802 family physicians to survey by mail between November 2008 and April 2009. Of the 774 who responded, 98 per cent said they had experienced at least one incident of “minor” abuse, and 75 per cent reported “major” abuse during their career. On average, respondents were in mid career.
Nearly 40 per cent said they at experienced at least one incident of “severe” abuse, said study author Dr. Bo Miedema of Dalhousie University’s family medicine teaching unit in Fredericton.
“One physician had his house burned down because of an mad of patient,” said Miedema. “A number of physicians talked about having slashed tires. We have five per cent who indicated assault had caused bodily harm.”
Long waits for medical care may leave patients mad, frustrated and more likely to lash out, Miedema said.
Often people are frightened, can’t get timely service, and turn their rage towards those around them, agreed Dr. Donna Manca, a family physician with a teaching practice at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Usually doctors can work around these patients, she said.
But doctors may also become the focus of delusions or obsessions of their patients. It happened to Manca.
A patient left threatening messages on Manca’s home and office phones and even laid a fake assault complaint with police.
“Fortunately, I had tape recorded some of the threats and they listened to that and it became apparent to them that I was the victim,” Manca said.
Manca remained worried for herself and family. She installed a security system, learned martial arts, and stopping visiting patients at nursing homes at night.
The abuse “raises depression and anxiety in physicians,” Miedema said. “Some physicians told us they stop enjoying the job altogether.”
If doctors experience many incidents, in many cases they will leave active practice and opt to work in a non-clinical setting without seeing patients. In other rare cases, doctors leave the profession altogether, Miedema said.
For Manca, zero tolerance for abuse and doctors turning their backs on patients is not answer.
“We’re dealing with people when they’re ill and they’re hurting. It’s part of the job,” Manca said, adding the way doctors are sometimes treated by patients needs to be recognized and talked about, with new strategies developed to protect them.
Miedema hopes the findings will lead to new support and help for doctors experiencing abuse.
“This study has highlighted some serious issues that family physicians in Canada must deal with on a daily basis, and we hope that this study will be a foundation for discussion to make the practice setting in Canada safer for family physicians, more conducive to physician well-being, and physician retention in practice,” the study’s authors concluded.
