Challenges faced in handling the medico-legal cases in a selected teaching hospital

ABSTRACT

Background: Doctor comes across certain ‘Medico-Legal’ problems at one time or the other during the practice of his/her profession. Reporting a medico legal case (MLC) is one of the legal responsibilities of all doctors to ensure that immediate action is taken by the police and maximum evidence is collected by them. This study was undertaken to assess the knowledge and attitude of the staff in dealing medico-legal case in tertiary care hospital and to find the challenges faced by them while handling the medico-legal cases.Methods: A cross sectional Study was conducted at Yenepoya Medical College Hospital, Mangalore among the Staff working in Accident and Emergency Department during the study period of 6 months.Results: The study was conducted among 116 study participants, most 108 (93.1%) were in the age group of 20-29 years and 77 (66.4%) were females. It was seen that only 3 (2.6%) of them correctly answered 17-20 questions out of 20 questions that were asked. Knowledge regarding MLC case was much high among CMO compared to others which was statistically significant with p value <0.0001. Challenges faced by the study participants were patients or the patient party not willing for MLC, delayed treatment due to the confusion, answering the court, handling the police and the violent public in few cases.Conclusions: Knowledge on dealing with MLC and a proper counseling session for patients of MLC cases can help to overcome various challenges faced while dealing with any MLC case.