Premium
Evaluating the validity of anger regulation problems, interpersonal style, and disturbed mental state for predicting inpatient violence
Author(s) -
Doyle Michael,
Dolan Mairead
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
behavioral sciences and the law
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1099-0798
pISSN - 0735-3936
DOI - 10.1002/bsl.739
Subject(s) - anger , predictive validity , clinical psychology , poison control , anger management , psychology , psychiatry , suicide prevention , mental health , interpersonal communication , injury prevention , human factors and ergonomics , occupational safety and health , medicine , medical emergency , social psychology , pathology
Research has been conducted to try to identify risk factors to help predict which patients will be violent during psychiatric hospitalization. Despite the relatively large amount of research conducted, it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions, as the studies vary considerably in study design, methods used, and choice of outcome measures. Studies also tend to focus on risk prediction, even though risk management is the primary aim of clinical practice in mental health services and few studies have focused on a theoretical basis for understanding violence. This study assessed the predictive validity of brief assessment scales in a sample of 94 forensic inpatients who had been inpatient for a median of 521 days, to test the hypotheses that anger regulation problems, interpersonal style, and disturbed mental state would be linked to increased violence risk in a forensic hospital during a hospital stay. The outcome variables for this study were physical violence against another and/or clear threats of physical violence. The results of this study provide support for the hypotheses, and this remained the case after controlling for age, gender, length of stay, and presence of major mental disorder. The findings should not only assist clinicians with assessment and management of risk but also support the reconceptualizing of risk prediction research to reflect the task of clinical risk management. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.