title: Assaults on psychiatrists by patients.
abstract: The authors describe the results of a survey of 115 psychiatrists regarding assaults by patients. Forty-eight psychiatrists stated that they had been assaulted; a total of 68 assaults was reported. Psychiatrists were most often assaulted in the early stages of their career or while they were working in high-risk settings such as prisons or emergency rooms. Many reported retrospectively that they might have had a role in provoking the assault and that they could have anticipated it. The authors believe that psychiatrists avoid dealing with the issue of violence by patients for a variety of reasons, and they recommend that clinicians learn techniques for managing potentially assaultive patients.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000374:Aggression; D000378:Agonistic Behavior; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000628:therapy; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011330:Prisons; D011570:Psychiatry; D014754:Violence