MEASURING AGGRESSION ON PSYCHIATRIC INPATIENT UNITS - DEVELOPMENT ANDTESTING OF THE CALGARY GENERAL-HOSPITAL AGGRESSION SCALE

During the pilot component of a study designed to document aggressive incidents on the psychiatric inpatient units and to provide practical information relating to such incidents, it became evident that there w ere problems with using the Staff Observation Aggression Scale. In ord er to conduct the proposed study a new scale needed to be developed. T he Calgary General Hospital (CGH) Aggression Scale was generated to: ( 1) capture all types of aggressive behavior, including behaviors that are very mild as well as those that are more severe and (2) reflect be haviors exhibited by all types of patients, not just those that are on ly a small proportion of this hospital's inpatient population. In addi tion to an introduction to the CGH Aggression Scale, descriptive data resulting from the use of the new scale and data regarding the reliabi lity of the new scale will be discussed.