Citation

Penterman B, Nijman H. Community Ment. Health J. 2011; 47(4): 463-471.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, Mental Health Institute Oost-Brabant, Veghel, The Netherlands, ejm.penterman@ggzoostbrabant.nl.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10597-010-9348-7

PMID

20886294

Abstract

During outreaching crisis visits, crisis team members run the risk of being confronted with aggressive behavior from their patients. To prevent dangerous situations, a method to assess risks in advance, on the basis of information received before the visit to the patient in crisis, could prove useful. During a two-year period, crisis team members completed a checklist before visiting patients in psychiatric crises. After each crisis visit, if there had been any aggression, this was recorded by means of the SOAS-R. In 51 of 499 crisis visits (10%) aggression was documented. The results indicate that the predictive validity of the presented checklist for occurrences of aggression may be fair-to-good. Use of the checklist in everyday crisis team practice seems recommendable as it structures the way risks are assessed before entering a potentially dangerous situation.

Language: en