Publication:

Perspectives of junior doctors on violence against medical professionals: a cross-sectional study in a tertiary care centre in Thrissur District

Background Violence is defined by the World Health Organization in the World Report on Violence and Health as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either result in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, mal-development or deprivation”. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has reported that 75% of doctors have faced physical or verbal violence during their lifetime, so it is important to study the perspective of junior doctors. This study aims to study the perspectives of junior doctors on violence against medical professionals and to find the proportion of doctors who had faced violence during their practice in a Tertiary Care Centre in the Thrissur district.

Methods Cross-sectional study was conducted among 95 junior doctors at Government Medical College, Thrissur. Institute Ethical Committee clearance and written informed consent were obtained from all the study participants. A semi-structured questionnaire containing questions on socio-demographic variables and 19 questions related to violence against doctors was used.

Results Mean age of the study participants was 27.06±4.04 years, of which, 70.5% were females. 98.9% were concerned with the rising incidence of violence against doctors. 41.1% (95%CI- 31.1, 51.6) have faced some type of abuse during their practice. 56.8% believed that both the patient and doctors are to blame for such incidents. 41.1% have not received training on how to communicate with patients.

Conclusions The majority of the doctors were concerned about the rising incidence of violence and have faced some type of violence. It is of concern that almost half of the doctors have not received any training on how to communicate with the patients.