Patient Assault: A Comparison of Patient and Staff Perceptions

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the perceptions of assaultive patients and staff victims regarding assault incidents. The hypotheses were as follows : (1) There will be congruence between patients' and victims' reports of objective or factual information regarding the assaults and (2) there will not be congruence between patients' and victims' reports of subjective information about the assaults. Monahan's (1981) framework was used for assessing violence on the assaultive patient and the assaulted staff member. Patients who assaulted a nursing staff member and nursing staff members who were assaulted were interviewed, and the congruence of responses between each pair (patient and staff member) on each question was assessed. For 10 items designated as objective, there was agreement between patients and victims in 6 cases and disagreement in 4 cases. For 8 subjective items, in all cases patients and victims gave different perceptions.