When residents are assaulted

Abstract

Introduction and objective

Description through a survey of physical aggressions suffered by Spanish Medical Trainees of all specialties.

Methods

We developed a survey through an online platform that was distributed to all Spanish trainees of all medical specialties. In that survey, we ask residents if they ever have been physically assaulted, for how many times, the year of residence when it occurred, if they have in their hospital an aggression protocol, and if it included a specific topic for trainees. We also asked them about their feelings after they have been assaulted.

Results

We collected 282 answers from the survey. We could observe that 12.9% of respondent trainees had been assaulted as least once. Fifty-one percent of times, it occurs during the first year of residency. Among assaulted residents, 25.5% were psychiatric trainees, and 44.4% were medical trainees, but no psychiatrist. Twenty-three percent were psychiatric trainees, and the 35% of them had been assaulted once. Only 25.2% of the residents knew the aggression protocol of their work center, but the majority (65.5%) did not know it. About how do they feel after being assaulted, most of them responded that they felt anxiety, helplessness, fear and they had even thought of leaving de residency or change it.

Conclusions

Aggressions during the trainee period seems to be prevalent (12,9%). Most trainees don’t even know if there is a aggression protocol in their hospitals, we think that a prevention and supporting guideline should be design for improve this prevalent situation.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.