WASHINGTON, D.C. – State nursing boards are failing to protect patients from nurses who engage in sexual misconduct, according to a groundbreaking study by Public Citizen that was published today in Public Health Nursing.
Only 882 U.S. registered and licensed practical or vocational nurses have been reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) over nearly 14 years (from 2003 through 2016) because of such misconduct, according to the study.
Sexual misconduct by nurses is reported to the NPDB only if it results in an adverse disciplinary action by state nursing boards (or, less commonly, certain entities such as hospitals) or malpractice payments. The low number of nurses reported to the NPDB because of this misconduct—despite the fact that millions of nurses worked in the profession over the study period—suggests that many nurses who commit sexual misconduct go unpunished.
The study is the first to analyze NPDB reports involving sexual misconduct by nurses.The study also found that although male nurses account for approximately 10 percent of U.S. nurses, males accounted for 63 percent of the nurses reported to the NPDB due to sexual misconduct.
The NPDB contains information about health care professionals, including nurses, who have been subject to adverse state licensing actions (or adverse action by other entities, such as hospitals) or had malpractice payments. This information is required by law to be reported to the NPDB.
According to the study, of the 882 nurses who faced consequences for sexual misconduct that resulted in NPDB reports, 866 were reported by state nursing boards. Nursing boards administered harsh punishments in most of these cases: 91 percent of such reports involved serious actions—including revocation, suspension or voluntary surrender of the nursing license. In contrast, state nursing boards took serious actions in only 75 percent of the nurse reports for other types of offenses.
However, nearly half of the nurses who engaged in sexual misconduct with patients that led to NPDB malpractice payment reports—16 out of 33—were not disciplined by state nursing boards for their misconduct, the study found.
AbuDagga co-authored the study with Dr. Sidney Wolfe, founder and senior adviser of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group; Dr. Michael Carome, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group; and Robert Oshel, retired associate director, Division of Practitioner Data Banks, Department of Health and Human Services.
The findings for nurses are consistent with those from a 2016 study by Public Citizen that showed that 70 percent of U.S. physicians—177 out of 253—who engaged in sexual misconduct that led to sanctions by hospitals or other health care organizations or malpractice payments were not disciplined by state medical boards for their unethical behavior.
The nurses with sexual misconduct-related reports identified in the new study accounted for just a small fraction (0.6 percent) of all nurses with NPDB reports that met the study criteria. Similarly, Public Citizen’s 2016 study showed that physicians with reports related to sexual misconduct accounted for approximately 1 percent of the total physicians with NPDB reports that met the study criteria.
“This suggests that state health professional licensing boards fail to protect patients who are victimized not just by nurses, but by others in the health care field,” Carome said.