title: Attitudes towards criminal and other patients.
abstract: Staff attitudes towards mentally abnormal offenders were investigated on a forensic psychiatric assessment ward as reflected in a drug trial. The attitude towards drug trials was negative in 79% of the personnel, in contrast to 71% positive in three Swedish mental hospitals. Of the respondents 75% considered that drug treatment did not benefit the patients. Then the attitudes of 21 general physicians towards assessment and drug treatment of mentally abnormal offenders as well as towards 10 illnesses were measured by self-rating scales employing a 10-cm line technique. Both the assessment and drug treatment of mentally abnormal offenders were the least favoured as  compared with somatic illnesses. Other neuropsychiatric disorders ranked with them were also very significantly (P less than 0.001) less favoured than pneumonia. They considered that these attitudes were shared in general by medical and nursing staff
mesh_terms: D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000534:rehabilitation; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D005555:Forensic Psychiatry; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D011567:Psychiatric Department, Hospital