More Than 80% Of Psychiatry Trainees Report Verbal, Physical or Sexual Assaults By Patients

A majority of psychiatry trainees go through some kind of assault-- physical, verbal, or sexual, from their patients. And at least one-third of them have been physically attacked several times, according to the results of a new survey.

These incidents not only affect the quality of patient care but take a toll on the trainees’ mental health.

"The extent of violence against psychiatric trainees is alarming and calls for the implementation of effective training, prevention, and intervention measures," study investigator Victor Pereira-Sanchez, MD, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York City, told Medscape Medical News.

Violence against healthcare professionals is on the rise among those employed in emergency departments with psychiatric trainees who are more exposed and vulnerable, according to the survey results.

The Survey:

The European Federation of Psychiatric Trainees created a group of experts to describe the extent and consequences of violence against them. And the group developed a survey asking young clinicians about their experiences pertaining to physical, verbal, and sexual assault at work. 827 psychiatric trainees took the survey and the average age was 31 years. 68% of them were women and more than 50% of them had completed their training in psychiatry.

Here’s what the results tell us:

• 83.6% of them had experienced some kind of assault during their training
• 92% reported verbal assaults
• 44% reported physical assaults
• 9.3% were assaulted sexually

While a smaller proportion of them had been assaulted only once, more than half of the survey participants reported being assaulted around two to five times during their training.

The results also revealed that the psychiatric trainees were assaulted in inpatient wards or the emergency department than in an outpatient or community settings.

Surprisingly, a majority of these assaulted psychiatric trainees did not report the assaults. They didn’t call the police or security personnel either. Apparently, the trainees thought that it was a part of their job to get insulted or suffer minor physical violence.

Trainees assaulted by psychiatry patients experienced fear, rage, anxiety, guilt, sadness, self-doubt, and feeling unsupported following an assault.

"When patients are out of control, they may act inappropriately, including verbal, physical, and sexual assaults. Clinicians should be prepared and have management tools," Renee Binder, MD, professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, told Medscape Medical News.