[State of bullying in a geriatric hospital]

Recently, reports of bullying and beatings among school children has brought these problems to the public attention. Unfortunately similar problems exist among the aged and institutionalized patients in geriatric hospitals, e.g., covert teasing and bullying of the weak. Therefore, the present status of bullying or being bullied in our geriatric hospital was analyzed and their backgrounds studied to develop clinical countermeasures against bullying. Results of this study were as follows; 1. Nineteen percent of patients were victims of bullying, and patients who had performed the bullying were 3.0%. 2. Of those who were bullied 20.0% wanted to change hospitals, while 60.0% felt they could tolerate the situation or suppress their anger, and 13.3% of the patients who had exhausted their patience took revenge on the bully. 3. Patients who had been bullied tended to be more tenacious and had a high level of depression by Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS). The apparent error rate in these results was 22.5%.