Aggression among psychiatric inpatients in Greece.

Abstract

We studied, during 5 consecutive days, the prevalence, types and demographic, historical and clinical correlates of overt aggression in a population of 136 acute and chronic inpatients with mainly a diagnosis of psychotic disorder. Almost one fourth of them exhibited some sort of aggressive behavior. Verbal aggression was by far the most frequent type followed-in decreasing order-by physical aggression, aggression against property and self-aggression. Past threats of violence and attacks on others as well as concurrent motor excitement, agitation, low tolerance of frustration, difficulty in delaying gratification, depressive feelings, anger, hostility, affective lability and antisocial behavior differed significantly across the aggressive and the nonaggressive groups. The best short-term clinical predictors of aggression were different for each type, anger being their sole common predictor, and accounted for various proportions of the corresponding variances ranging from only 13.3% for self-aggression to 39.2% for verbal aggression.