It is proposed that healthcare professionals are prone to be stalked by
their patients, but many feel ashamed to talk about it, believing that they
might have done something to warrant the stalking. We undertook a rigorous
review of the literature with the primitive goal of highlighting noteworthy
issues on the stalking of healthcare professionals and psychologists by their
patients. Databases such as PubMed and Google Scholar were searched to collate
articles and studies on the topic with the keywords “stalker, stalking,
assaults, aggression, and physicians”. From the review, the prevalence rate of
stalking healthcare professionals ranged between 6%-53%.
This huge variation was largely due to the inconsistencies in the definition of
what constituted stalking. The common motives of stalkers were largely due to
erotomania or misguided expectation and a sense of resentment due to service
dissatisfaction. Finally, it was apparently right to conclude that, medical
doctors or healthcare professionals are at risk of being stalked on the grounds
of service dissatisfaction, and mismanagement of treatment processes resulting
in physical or perceived client injuries. Whereas psychologists and other
psychiatrists are more prone to be stalked due to erotomaniac reasons.
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