Patient abuse

Patient abuse or patient neglect is any action or failure to act that causes unreasonable suffering, misery, or harm to a medical patient. Abuse encompasses physical harm, such as striking or sexual assault, and psychological mistreatment, as well as deliberately withholding necessary food, care, or medical attention, while neglect involves failing to properly meet a patient's needs or unintentionally causing injury through an act or omission. These violations can occur across healthcare settings including hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, and home care, and healthcare professionals found to have committed such abuse can face loss of their medical license as well as criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits. Elder abuse, affecting patients over 60, makes up a significant share of documented cases, while abuse of the general adult patient population remains comparatively understudied in the academic literature. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/