NURSING STAFF RESPONSES TO VIOLENT EVENTS IN CLOSED PSYCHIATRIC-WARDS- A COMPARISON BETWEEN ATTRIBUTIONAL AND COGNITIVE-NEO-ASSOCIATIONISTIC ANALYSES

This paper examines the behavioural response of nursing staff in psych iatric wards to a patient's violent behaviour towards a staff member a s a function of whether the patient's behaviour was presented as arbit rary or not. The participants were 133 nurses. They were given two vig nettes describing an arbitrary and a non-arbitrary behaviour of a pati ent and were asked what the typical response in their ward to each eve nt would be. The results show that when the patient's behaviour was pe rceived as arbitrary staff was believed to respond with a therapeutic reaction more frequently than to non-arbitrary behaviour. Moreover, pa rticipants' professional characteristics played a greater role in the non-arbitrary scenario. it is suggested that a therapeutic response to a patient's violent behaviour requires a recognition that the patient 's behaviour is consistent with his/her role as a patient. The implica tion of these results for Berkowitz & Heimer's (1989) cognitive-neo-as sociationistic analysis is discussed.