Patient aggression in clinical psychiatry: perceptions

Patient aggression in clinical psychiatry: perceptions of mental health nurses Mental health nurses are faced with an increasing number of aggressive incidents during their daily practice. The coercive intervention of seclusion is often used to manage patient aggression in the Netherlands. However, GGZ Nederland, the Dutch association of service providers for mental health and addition care, has initiated a project to decrease the number of seclusions in clinical psychiatry. A first step in this project is to gain insight into the current situation: the perceived prevalence of patient aggression, the attitudes of mental health nurses towards patient aggression and those socio-demographic and psychosocial factors that contribute to the use of coercive interventions. A survey was undertaken among 113 nurses from six closed and semi-closed wards. In this survey, two questionnaires wer