Projection

BackgroundMost current knowledge of the incidence of medical adverse events (AEs) comes from studies carried out in hospital settings. Little is known about AEs occurring outside hospitals, in spite the fact that most of contacts between patients and health care take place in primary care. Small sample population studies report that 4-49% of the general public have experienced AEs related to their own or family members´ care.The purpose with the present study was to investigate the occurrence of experienced medical adverse events in a large general population.MethodsWe invited 19763 inhabitants of a municipality in northern Norway, age 30 years and older, to fill in a questionnaire. Main outcome measures were life time prevalence of AEs experienced by respondents or their first degree relatives, perceived responsibility for and predictors of such events, as well as formal complaints as a reaction to the events.ResultsThe response rate was 66%. Nine and 10% of the respondents reported self-experienced adverse events, and 15 and 19% (men and women, respectively) that their relatives had experienced AEs. Logistic regression models showed that the strongest predictors of reporting self-experienced adverse events were: Having been persuaded to accept an unwanted examination or treatment, difficulties in getting a referral from primary to specialist health care, and inadequate communication with the doctor. Of the respondents who had experienced adverse events personally, 62% placed the responsibility for the event on the general practitioner, 39% on the hospital doctor, and 19% on failing routines or cooperation. Only 7% of men and 14% of women who reported self-experienced events handed in a formal complaint.ConclusionsThe public predominantly place the responsibility for medical adverse events on doctors, in particular general practitioners, and to a lesser degree on the system. This should be emphasised by doctors and managers who communicate with patients who have experienced AEs, and in patient safety work. Only a small fraction of adverse events results in a formal written complaint. Therefore, such complaints are of limited value as a basis for patient safety work.

BackgroundIn adults with antisocial personality disorder, marked alterations in the recognition of facial affect were described. Less consistent data are available on the emotion recognition in adolescents with externalization problems. The aim of the present study was to assess the relation between the recognition of emotions and conduct symptoms in adolescent boys with externalization problems.MethodsAdolescent boys with externalization problems referred to Vadaskert Child Psychiatry Hospital participated in the study after informed consent (N = 114, 11-17 years, mean = 13.4). The conduct problems scale of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (parent and self-report) was used. The performance in a facial emotion recognition test was assessed.ResultsConduct problems score (parent and self-report) was inversely correlated with the overall emotion recognition. In the self-report, conduct problems score was inversely correlated with the recognition of anger, fear, and sadness. Adolescents with high conduct problems scores were significantly worse in the recognition of fear, sadness, and overall recognition than adolescents with low conduct scores, irrespective of age and IQ.ConclusionsOur results suggest that impaired emotion recognition is dimensionally related to conduct problems and might have importance in the development of antisocial behavior.

This article examines victims' purported complicity in the judicial failures of domestic violence law to protect them in Cambodia. It is based on 3 years (2012-2014) of research in Siem Reap and Pursat Provinces on the everyday politics of the 2005 "Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence and the Protection of the Victims" (DV Law). The project questioned why investments in DV Law are faltering and took a multi-stakeholder approach to do so. In addition to 40 interviews with female domestic violence victims, the research included 50 interviews with legal and health professionals, NGO workers, low- and high-ranking police officers, religious figures, and local government authority leaders who each have an occupational investment in the implementation and enforcement of DV Law. Forming the backbone of the article, the findings from this latter sample reveal how women are construed not only as barriers "clouding the judgment of law" but also as actors denying the agency of institutional stakeholders (and law itself) to bring perpetrators to account. The findings suggest that DV Law has the potential to entrench, rather than diminish, an environment of victim blaming. In turn, the article signals the importance of research on, and better professional support of, intermediaries who (discursively) administrate the relationship between DV Law and the victims/citizens it seeks to protect.

BackgroundIn recent years, a pattern has emerged in healthcare systems where clinicians and organisations are publicly blamed and punished following tragic events such as suicides or homicides. These responses often reflect more than institutional accountability, they reveal unconscious cultural mechanisms of scapegoating rooted in collective anxiety, grief, and the intolerability of uncertainty.AimsThis paper explores scapegoating in healthcare not merely as an ethical or organisational failure, but as a deep-seated psychological and sociocultural process. It aims to illuminate how blame is mobilised as a primitive defence against psychic pain and systemic dysfunction, and to consider the implications for clinical practice, regulation, and public trust.Methodological approachThis article employs an interpretive narrative approach, synthesising psychoanalytic and sociological theory to illuminate scapegoating in healthcare. It draws on the work of Freud, Bion, Menzies-Lyth, Douglas, and Girard, and integrates contemporary case material from international healthcare refined through peer discussion to illustrate and develop the theoretical analysis.Key Arguments:Scapegoating functions as a symbolic ritual of emotional discharge that obstructs learning and distorts justice. Organisational investigations and media narratives often collapse systemic complexity into linear blame, serving retributive rather than restorative purposes. Those targeted are frequently among the most vulnerable, socially, professionally, or structurally. The paper argues that only by recognising and resisting these unconscious group dynamics can healthcare systems foster genuine accountability, psychological safety, and real learning.