Characteristics of Violent Behavior in Psychiatric Inpatients

Jun, Tae Youn; Kweon, Yong Sil; Toh, Kyu Young

Abstract

To evaluate the characteristics of violent behavior of psychiatric inpatients, the authors reviewed clinical records of psychiatric patients who had admitted at UiJong Bu St. Mary's Hospital from January 1994 to lune 1995. We divided the 287 subjects into violent and nonviolent group according to the presence of violent behaviors in psychiatric ward. We assessed demographic variables, clinical characteristics and violent behaviors using Overt Aggression Scale and compared these variables of violent group with nonviolent group. The results were as follows: 1) The number of violent patients was 72(25.1% of the total). 2) In terms of demographic variables, the differences between two groups in education and occupation were significant(p<.05). 3) In psychiatric diagnoses, violent group were more likely to have mania, schizophrenia and organic rental disorder in sequence but there were no differences between violent and nonviolent group. 4) The history of violent behavior was greater in violent group(p<.001) and the mode of admission was significantly different between two groups(p<.005). 5) In cluster of psychopathology on admission, more frequently found clusters of psychopathology in violent group were agitation-excitement and hostile- suspiciousness and there were significant differences between two groups(p<.001). 6) The length of stay in violent group(59.3 days)was significantly longer than nonviolent group(38.4 days)(p<.001). 7) The types of violent behavior were verbal aggression, physical aggression against objects and physical aggression against other people in frequency sequence. 8) The most frequent type of behavioral clue before violent behavior was hyperactive, loud, verbally abusive, angry, hostile(68.1%). 9) Most of violent behaviors were presented between midday and 6 pm. in resting time. 10) 62.3% of total violent behaviors were occurred within first week following admission. 11) The variables which showed significant effects on total aggression score were religion, educational status, occupation, mode of admission, psychiatric diagnosis, psychopathology on admission and history of violent behavior before admission. In summary, these results showed similar trends compared to previous studies on characteristics of psychiatric inpatients. And we fecund that more important predictors of violent behavior in practice were likely to be history of violent behavior, psychopathology on admission and behavioral cue before violent behavior.