Determinants of incidents in a forensic psychiatric program

Abstract

Nursing staff in forensic psychiatric contexts are significantly more likely to be the victims of assault-related incidents than patients. Evidence in the scientific literature warrants the consideration of interpersonal factors between nursing staff and patients and these factors relationship to incidents. The purpose of this study was to further investigate the nature of this relationship. Consistent with previous investigations, a disproportionate number of patients were responsible for the majority of incidents. The high frequency of schizophrenia related incidents was however, inconsistent with the literature. An examination of nursing team incident involvement showed significant frequency of incident variation with only nonviolent categorized incidents. A number of. correlational relationships were observed between incidents, personality, and individually perceived work environment factors, relationships which are explored further within this paper.