Understanding Australian female chiropractors’ experiences of inappropriate patient sexual behaviour: A study using interpretive phenomenological analysis

Abstract

Female practitioners are often subjected to inappropriate patient sexual behaviour (IPSB). Adverse consequences of such sexual harassment include for the practitioner psychological stress effects and negative work-related consequences that contributes to career dissatisfaction and burnout. Confronting the issue within the healthcare context has been shown to be problematic because practitioners feel an obligation to protect the therapeutic relationship above their own personal discomfort. There is an absence of research on this topic with respect to female chiropractors and we proposed a qualitative study aimed to explore female chiropractors lived experiences of managing incidents of IPSB.