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Are psychiatrists sexist? a study of bias in the assessment of psychiatric emergencies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Ion Hall  and
Martin Deahl
Ion Hall*
Affiliation:
Division of Psychiatry of Disability, St Georges Hospital, Medical School, Cranmer Terrace, London SW17 ORE
Martin Deahl
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, St Bartholomew's Hospital, London EC1A 7BE
*
∗Correspondence
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Abstract

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In order to investigate bias in history taking among psychiatric trainees, a retrospective study of case-notes was undertaken in an emergency psychiatric clinic in a teaching district. Two hundred and twenty-seven consecutive new patient assessments were assessed for quality of alcohol, substance use and forensic histories. Trainees were more likely to take alcohol, substance use and forensic histories from men, and more likely to take substance use histories from younger patients. It is concluded that trainees make sexist and ageist assumptions when they assess patients. There is a need for the education of doctors in this area.

Type
Original Papers
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 19 , Issue 9 , September 1995 , pp. 538 - 540
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1995

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