Responding to sexual harassment by patients: A brief guide for general practices

Responding to sexual harassment

How can I respond to sexual harassment by a patient in the first instance?

Your safety, health and wellbeing are paramount.

Your practice should have a policy and procedures for sexual harassment by patients. It is important to note that a policy for sexual harassment in the workplace is not sufficient to assist practices in navigating the particular challenges presented by sexual harassment by patients.

The following decision-making tool might be used as part of your practice’s policy for managing sexual harassment by patients.9,10 For more information on managing aggressive or violent patients, please see the RACGP resource, Preventing and managing patient aggression and violence: A brief guide for general practices.

Figure 1. Decision tree for incidents of sexual harassment by patients

This event attracts CPD points and can be self recorded

Did you know you can now log your CPD with a click of a button?

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