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Incidence, Severity and Characteristics of Patients’ Aggression in Acute Psychiatric Wards: Data from a Slovenian National Survey Cover

Incidence, Severity and Characteristics of Patients’ Aggression in Acute Psychiatric Wards: Data from a Slovenian National Survey

Open Access
|Oct 2023

Figures & Tables

Figure 1.

Severity of different types of aggressive behaviour.
Severity of different types of aggressive behaviour.

Figure 2.

Time-of-day variations in the severity of aggressive incidents.
Time-of-day variations in the severity of aggressive incidents.

Characteristics of aggressive incidents_

Characteristics of aggressionAggressive incidents: n (%)
Provocation
    No442 (47.9)
    Other patients68 (7.4)
    Help with ADL50 (5.4)
    Patient being denied something179 (19.4)
    Required taking medication79 (8.6)
    Other1130 (14.1)
Means used by the patient
    Verbal aggression718 (77.9)
    Ordinary objects:
        Chair, glass47 (5.1)
        Other2125 (13.6)
    Parts of the body:
        Hand, foot, teeth475 (51.5)
        Other333 (3.6)
    Dangerous objects:
        Knife1 (0.1)
        Strangulation4 (0.4)
        Other412 (1.3)
Target of aggression
    Nothing39 (4.2)
    Objects170 (18.4)
    Other patients161 (17.5)
    Patient self71 (7.7)
    Staff members696 (75.5)
    Other persons23 (2.5)
Consequences for victims
    No314 (34.1)
    Objects53 (5.7)
    Persons:
    Felt threatened539 (58.5)
    Pain55 (6.0)
    Visible injury36 (3.9)
    Need for treatment9 (0.9)
Measures to stop aggression
    None13 (1.4)
    Talk to patient749 (81.2)
    Calmly brought away137 (14.9)
    Oral medication197 (21.4)
    Parenteral medication214 (23.2)
    Held with force96 (10.4)
    Seclusion22 (2.4)
    Physical restraints570 (61.8)
    Other measures56 (0.7)

Patient-based and event-based aggression incidence rates_

Aggressive behaviourAllSevereVerbalPhysical
Patients, n427352370260
Proportion of patients with aggressive behaviour, %13.411.011.68.2
Average number of incidents per patient2.21.91.91.9
Incidents, n922683718494
Incidence per 100 occupied bed days, 95% CI2.982.212.321.60
[2.80;3.18][2.05;2.38][2.16;2.50)[1.46;1.75]
Incidence per bed per year9.487.027.385.08
Incidence per 100 patients28.9021.4122.5115.49
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/sjph-2023-0027 | Journal eISSN: 1854-2476 | Journal ISSN: 0351-0026
Language: English
Page range: 190 - 197
Submitted on: Jun 6, 2023
Accepted on: Sep 14, 2023
Published on: Oct 4, 2023
Published by: National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 4 issues per year

© 2023 Andreja ČELOFIGA, Jure KOPRIVŠEK, Hojka GREGORIČ KUMPERŠČAK, Blanka KORES PLESNIČAR, published by National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.