Junior doctors ‘need protection from violence’

JUNIOR doctors working in psychiatric hospitals need better protection from violence and verbal abuse, a study has found.

An audit of an urban area with a population of 17,000, carried out by Lorcan Feeney and Dr Siobhán Barry, found high levels of incorrect or inappropriate use of on-call junior psychiatric doctors because there was no where else for people to turn after hours. These doctors were also subject to verbal abuse, threatening behaviour and violence.

The audit, published in this month’s Irish Medical Journal, said the first port of call for people seeking psychiatric help outside normal working hours is often the psychiatric junior doctor on call in a psychiatric hospital.

“Individuals who make contact with this doctor sometimes do so inappropriately and verbal and physical aggression are regularly reported.

Identification of characteristics of individuals who abuse the psychiatric doctor on duty will enable measures to be put in place to better protect those involved,” the audit said.

Conducted last November, the appropriateness of each contact made to on-call junior psychiatric doctors was determined from questions regarding the nature and outcome of the contact, as well as from the opinion of the doctor as to more appropriate means of dealing with the problem that presented.

Of 128 contacts recorded over the 30-day audit:

* 76 were inappropriate;

* 20 contacts involved verbal aggression;

* three involved physically threatening behaviour;

* one involved actual physical violence.

It also found inappropriate and abusive contacts were more likely to be at the weekend and after midnight, to involve males aged 30 to 65 who were existing patients of the service with diagnoses of schizophrenia or personality disorder, or who were intoxicated.

Neither the gender nor the ethnicity of the doctor on duty had any bearing on abuse levels.