Violation in Caring for the Physically Disabled

Based on in-depth interviews, this article reports how people with disabilities perceive and experience the care given by public health care personnel. A major and disturbingfinding is that the informants describe feelings of being violated, transgressed, and infringed upon by the personnel in charge of their care. Because of the way nurses and other health care personnel interact, patients' bodies are often perceived as objects. The article describes some of these feelings, including how the informants construct different body boundaries in order to handle the violation of their body and body zone, and it discusses some features of the health care professions that may cause the informants'feelings of being violated.