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Nursing staff responses to violent events in closed psychiatric wards: A comparison between attributional and cognitive—neo‐associationistic analyses
Author(s) -
Apel Dorit,
BarTal Yoram
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8309.1996.tb01111.x
Subject(s) - cognition , psychology , psychiatric ward , attribution , psychiatry , social psychology , nursing , medicine
This paper examines the behavioural response of nursing staff in psychiatric wards to a patient's violent behaviour towards a staff member as a function of whether the patient's behaviour was presented as arbitrary or not. The participants were 133 nurses. They were given two vignettes describing an arbitrary and a non‐arbitrary behaviour of a patient and were asked what the typical response in their ward to each event would be. The results show that when the patient's behaviour was perceived as arbitrary, staff was believed to respond with a therapeutic reaction more frequently than to non‐arbitrary behaviour. Moreover, participants' professional characteristics played a greater role in the non‐arbitrary scenario. It is suggested that a therapeutic response to a patient's violent behaviour requires a recognition that the patient's behaviour is consistent with his/her role as a patient. The implication of these results for Berkowitz & Heimer's (1989) cognitive—neo‐associationistic analysis is discussed.