Three-quarters of Canadian family doctors say they have suffered at least one incident of major abuse at the hands of a patient, according to a study released Friday in the journal Canadian Family Physician. The study represented the first national look at the violence in doctor's offices.

Researchers randomly selected 3,802 family physicians to survey by mail between November 2008 and April 2009. Of the 774 who responded, 98 per cent said they had experienced at least one incident of "minor" abuse, and 75 per cent reported "major" abuse during their career. Nearly 40 per cent said they at experienced at least one incident of "severe" abuse, said study author Dr. Bo Miedema of Dalhousie University in Halifax.

"One physician had his house burned down because of an angry patient," said Miedema. "A number of physicians talked about having slashed tires. We have five per cent who indicated assault had caused bodily harm."

Females were more frequently bullied and sexually harassed, while male physicians were more often verbally threatened, humiliated or assaulted, and were more likely to experience destructive behaviour.

Caucasians experienced significantly higher levels of disrespectful behaviour and reported more assaults causing injury than non-Caucasian physicians. Family physicians working in emergency departments were at increased risk of abuse compared with those in private practice.

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