Abstract
Background: Cyber-victimisation is a growing public health challenge, particularly for people with long-term conditions and disabilities. These individuals face complex challenges in managing health, compounded by experiences of discrimination and insufficient access to appropriate support. Aim: This study examines healthcare professionals’ encounters with patients who have long-term conditions or disabilities and reported cyber-victimisation. It focuses on the scope of these experiences in healthcare, impact on patients, healthcare professionals’ awareness, and perceived training needs. Method: A mixed-methods survey was conducted with UK-based healthcare professionals, recruited through the Modality Super GP partnership, social media, and contacting relevant organisations. Results: The participant sample comprised 118 healthcare professionals, with a mean of 20.72 years of professional experience (SD = 13.72). Among them, 33.90% encountered patients affected by cyber-victimisation, and of these, 82.50% indicated that such experiences had a detrimental impact on their patients’ health. Reported impacts were on mental health, social relationships, lifestyle, physical complications, missing routine appointments, changes to medications, and lab tests. Qualitative themes included mental health consequences, worsening of chronic conditions, increased vulnerability due to certain conditions, trust and stigma, and varied professional awareness. Among those asked about training (n = 77), 58.44% supported research-informed programmes, with preferred formats being interactive media, workshops, and printed materials. Conclusion: Findings confirm that cyber-victimisation of this group is prevalent in healthcare, yet support and awareness remain limited. Training is needed to equip professionals to assist affected patients. Future research should explore interdisciplinary strategies to strengthen healthcare responses and embed cyber-victimisation awareness into public health policy.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Health Services Insights |
| Volume | 18 |
| Early online date | 31 Oct 2025 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2025 |
Bibliographical note
Copyright © The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further
permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work is funded by the Open Societal Challenges Scheme (The Open University).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Open University |
Keywords
- impairments
- health communication
- patient support strategies
- long-term conditions
- professional development in healthcare
- digital safeguarding