Abstract
Objective: To ascertain the incidence of violence against internists.
Setting: A county-operated tertiary care center in Nassau County, New York.
Design and participants: Questionnaires were distributed to 100 internal medicine residents and attending physicians. They were asked to report: whether they had ever been assaulted or battered either by patients or by relatives of patients; the point in their medical training at which such episodes had occurred; the nature and severity of the violent episodes; and the circumstances surrounding such episodes.
Results: Questionnaires were returned by 63 physicians (response rate, 63%). Ten physicians (16% of the respondents) reported that they had been battered, three (5%) on multiple occasions. Twenty-six physicians (41%) reported that they had been assaulted, 15 (24%) on multiple occasions. The majority (54%) of violent episodes had been instigated either by intoxicated patients or by patients with psychiatric histories. In this small sample, no injury was reported.
Conclusions: Violence against medical residents and attending physicians exists and is most commonly associated with patients who are intoxicated or who have psychiatric histories.
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Additional information
Received from the Division of General Medicine, Nassau County Medical Center, 2201 Hempstead Turnpike, East Meadow, NY 11554.
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Paola, F., Malik, T. & Qureshi, A. Violence against physicians. J Gen Intern Med 9, 503–506 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02599220
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02599220