Violence and threats of violence within psychiatric care - a comparison of staff and patient experience of the same incident

This study compared staff members' and psychotic patients' experiences of one and the same violent incident. The staff exposed to the violence completed the Staff Observation Aggression Scale (SOAS). The patients who had exhibited the violent behaviour were interviewed prior to discharge from the ward. When comparing the SOAS data with the patient interviews, it was found that the staff members were able to identify less than 50% of the provocations that the patient experienced. According to the patient interviews, giving the patient medication was far more often experienced as a provocation, resulting in violence, than the staff perceived. Knowledge about how to interpret the patients' body language and other signals, and how patients perceive the staff's behaviour, must be understood for an efficient prevention of violence in psychiatric care.