Predictors of imminent violence in psychiatric inpatients.
Behavior and symptoms seen in 48 24-h periods preceding violent episodes and 93 control observations were studied. Six behaviors were more common before violence: confusion, irritability, boisterousness, physical threats, verbal threats and attacks on objects. A logistic regression equation based on these behaviors in a randomized half of the observations predicted the occurrence of subsequent violence in 92.1% of the other half of the sample without any false positives, giving a sensitivity of 81.3% and a specificity of 100%. It is concluded that mentally ill people display the same behaviour before violent acts as we would expect in people without such disorder. The potential for short-term prediction of violence seems good.
Linaker
O M
OM
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Trondheim, Norway.
Busch-Iversen
H
H
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D014754:Violence