KEY POINTS:
Being stalked is a major occupational hazard for those who look after our mentally unwell.
A new study reveals more than 70 per cent of psychiatrists and mental health nurses have been stalked on at least two occasions.
Nearly 300 mental health professionals took part in the pilot
study into the nature and prevalence of stalking in the sector.
Author and Auckland University adjunct professor Frances Hughes said the findings had blown away some myths around stalker behaviour.
"People tend to think stalkers are always men or mad people," she said.
However, the report showed clinicians were being stalked in nearly equal measure by mental health patients and non-patients. It also revealed that female patients were just as likely to be stalkers as males.
Hughes was a nurse in a casualty department when a patient began stalking her.
"She would just turn up at work. You don't know until you feel uncomfortable that it's going on and then you question what you've done to make it happen. You actually start doubting yourself, wondering if you are creating the problem," she said.
Hughes went to her employers, but they did nothing and she eventually moved to get free of her stalker.
Professor Paul Mullen from Monash University in Australia is one of the world's leading experts on stalking, and he is not surprised by the number of mental health clinicians who have faced the problem. He suggested it was part of the risk of being a professional in the area. He said stalking was also high among GPs, night-class teachers and anyone who was brought into contact in a helping role with lonely, disturbed people who were looking for companionship.
Mullen said people also stalked because they were angry, and mental health professionals often evoked expectations they could not deliver on.
"So if you work in a profession where the majority of your patients go away disappointed, it's not surprising you end up being stalked," he said.
Nurses Organisation mental health section adviser Susanne Trim said all members were aware of the issue of stalking. She conceded there was potentially a higher risk for those working with patients who had major mental illness and perhaps a distorted sense of reality, which resulted in the misinterpretion of situations.
She advised nurses who experienced stalking to ensure their employers were aware of the situation and to go to the police.
Frances Hughes said that although stalking was illegal, victims tended to turn to their colleagues for help, rather than the police. Clinicians often thought they could find a therapeutic way to sort through the issue.
"But stalking is defined as an enduring experience which creates fear... and it needs to be brought to the attention of police before it ends up in serious injury," she said.
The behaviours the study identified included unwanted letters and telephone calls, turning up uninvited, sending offensive material, loitering, threats and interfering with property. Sixty-nine per cent of the women and 31 per cent of the men surveyed had experienced some of these behaviours.
The study showed the effects of stalking ranged from stress, sleeplessness and feelings of fear and helplessness, to serious physical injuries.
Mullen said there was no way to stop stalking and it was just one of the risks of certain professions.
Meanwhile, Hughes wants a national study into stalking, to assess whether The Harassment Act is providing enough protection.
Harassment Act
* The Harassment Act came into force on January 1, 1998.
* Harassment is defined as one person engaging in a pattern of behaviour against another, on at least two separate occasions within a period of 12 months.
* Under the Act it is an offence to harass another person with the intention of causing that person to fear for their own safety or the safety of a family member.
* A person found guilty of criminal harassment faces a maximum of two years in jail.