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EXPRESSED EMOTION, ATTRIBUTIONS AND COPING IN STAFF WHO HAVE BEEN VICTIMS OF VIOLENT INCIDENTS
Author(s) -
Cottle Mandy,
Kuipers Liz,
Murphy Glynis,
Oakes Peter
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
mental handicap research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.056
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1468-3148
pISSN - 0952-9608
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-3148.1995.tb00153.x
Subject(s) - attribution , incident report , anxiety , coping (psychology) , psychology , critical incident technique , clinical psychology , psychiatry , social psychology , computer security , marketing , computer science , business
In some occupations, there is an increased risk of becoming a victim of a violent incident. Nursing and care work, in settings for people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour, or who have mental health needs, are occupations which can involve such a risk. This study examined how staff felt, after a violent incident, towards the perpetrator of die incident (expressed emotion), and the reasons (attributions) that the care staff gave as to their belief about the cause of the incident. Coping was investigated by looking at measures of anxiety. Results indicated that anxiety was often increased a week after the incident but then returned to baseline levels after a month. Expressed emotion was often high after an incident, and remained high a month later. Reasons that staff gave about the cause of the violent incident varied but they seldom blamed themselves for die incident. They tended to make attributions which were internal to the client, external to themselves, personal to the client, uncontrollable by themselves, and neither controllable nor uncontrollable by the client.