Counteracting Abuse in Health Care : A Quantitative Evaluation of an Intervention with Forum Play for Staff

• Objectives: In their lifetime, 13%–28% of female patients in the Nordic countries seeking gynecological health care have reported abuse by staff in a health care setting (AHC). Besides suffering, AHC can cause patients to avoid contacting the health care system. Thus, interventions are clearly needed. In this article, we report a drama intervention method among health care staff and study to what extent the intervention increased the staff’s awareness of AHC and their ability to take action against it.Design: Pre-/post-test measurement by means of self-reported questionnaires with a longterm follow-up one year after the intervention. Questionnaires were distributed at four measuring times.Setting: A women’s clinic in Sweden.Participants: All staff at the target clinic were invited to participate in the intervention and received the questionnaires (n=137). Of those 136 had the possibility to participate in the intervention. A total of 92 staff members (67%) returned at least two questionnaires. 76 (56%) participated in the intervention, of which 61 (80%) returned at least one questionnaire.Intervention: The drama intervention was based on Forum Play (FP), a form of improvised role-play based on the pedagogy of Augusto Boal. During one year, 2008–2009, 16 half-day FP workshops focusing on AHC were conducted at the target clinic. Participation was voluntary.Primary outcome measures: 1) The number of reported occasions when staff heard of or were involved in AHC. 2) FP participants’ self-reported ability to act in AHC-related situations.Results: No change could be seen in the number of occasions of AHC reported by staff between baseline and one year after the intervention. However, an increase of the participants’ ability to act in AHC-related situations was seen.Conclusions: Health care staff’s participation in FP workshops can increase their ability to take action in AHC situations, but probably does not affect their awareness of AHC.

Keyword

Abuse in health care

interactive theater

Forum Play

Forum Theater

health care staff

professional-patient relation

moral resources

MEDICINE

MEDICIN

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

ovr (subject category)