Prevalence of perception of violent behavior during social service in physicians in Mexico

Abstract

Introduction: In Mexico, social service is essential for higher education students to obtain legal authorization to practice their profession. However, the social service of medicine has been affected by the social conditions in which it is developed, emphasizing the increased perception of violence towards medical students during social service.

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of perception of violent behavior by physicians during social service in a public university in Mexico over five years.

Method: A self-administered questionnaire of 21 questions with a Likert-type scale was applied to the perception of violent behaviors in social service. Descriptive statistics were performed to obtain the prevalence and logistic regression models to explore associations.

Results: 4,349 graduated physicians responded to the survey, and a prevalence of 58.8% of perception of at least one of the 21 violent behaviors questioned was found. The most frequent were persistent attempts to belittle and undermine work, destructive and sarcastic insinuations, and humiliation in front of colleagues. An association was observed between the modalities of rural clinical camps (OR 1.41, 95% CI 1.04-1.92) and Linkage (OR 1.40, 95% CI 1.04-1.87) and a greater risk of perceiving at least one of the violent behaviors questioned.

Conclusions: The results suggest an increase in the prevalence of perceived violent behavior in social service during the last five years in Mexico. Implementing strategies, policies, and programs that address violence during social service is urgently needed to create safe spaces where physicians can perform their functions to benefit the Mexican population.