Officer attitudes towards adult male prisoners who self-harm: development of an attitudinal measure and investigation of sex differences.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of the current study was to explore attitudes towards self-harm in a sample of prison officers, with subsidiary aims of assessing if these attitudes alter as a function of the prisoner's behavior and the sex of the participant.


METHODS
One hundred and sixty-two officers (100 men and 62 women) completed a general measure of their attitudes towards prisoners and one designed to assess Attitudes towards Prisoners who Self-Harm (APSH). Participants rated their perceptions of two adult male prisoners depicted in vignettes. The vignettes depicted identical types of self-harm but varied the behavioral characteristics of the prisoners involved, with one depicted as "well-behaved" and the other as "disruptive".


RESULTS
Women were more likely than men to report positive attitudes towards self-harm and in particular were less likely than men to endorse negative myths regarding self-harm. The prisoner depicted as "disruptive" invoked increased negative attitudes than the "well-behaved" prisoner. This finding was consistent across sex.


CONCLUSIONS
The current study indicates that APSH are comprised of a number of components that were influenced by the sex of the participant and the behavioral characteristics of the prisoners depicted. The implications of these findings to practice are discussed.
Ireland
Jane L
JL
Department of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, Lancashire, UK. JLIreland1@uclan.ac.uk
Quinn
Karen
K
D001290:Attitude; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008889:Military Personnel / Q000523:psychology*; D011329:Prisoners; D016728:Self-Injurious Behavior; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D006113:United Kingdom