AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR

Aggressive Behaviour in the High-Secure Forensic

Name of Writer

Name of Institution

Aggressive Behaviour in the High-Secure Forensic Unit

1. Introduction

The research article that is going to be critiqued in this paper namely “Aggressive behaviour in the high-secure forensic setting: the perceptions of patients”. The authors of the article try to find out the answers to two main research questions i.e. identifying the factors that lead to aggressive behaviour and the ways by which the risks associated with aggressive behaviour can be reduced. The article undertakes a focus group interview of 27 patients of aggressive behaviour in outstanding secure forensic facility, and the study focuses around five main causes or themes of aggressive behaviour by the participants in the wards of the facility the environment; idle days; staff interactions; medication issues; and patient-centred factors. The article relates to the questions arising from aggressive behaviour of people that are in highly secured facilities, and the factors that lead to the increase in the aggressive behaviour within the facility rather than treatment. Although, it has been thought of that these facilities are highly secured due to the nature of the patients and their security; however, it is essential that an arbitrary line is in between safety and security of the patient and effective treatment or therapy.

2. Discussion

However, prior to this article there have been two studies that have worked towards capturing the patients' perception about aggressive behaviour. The study conducted by Duxbury & Whittington (2005) compared the perception of the staff and patients of an in-patient facility about aggression, and concluded that threatening behaviour in such facilities is due to the environmental factors as well as the controlling attitudes of the staff. The second study conducted by Hinsby & Baker (2004) used a structured interview of four staff and four patients of a medium security facility. Although, the sample size was very small, but the study gave varied differences on account of both patients and staff, as the patient stemmed the factors relating to aggressive behaviour on environmental factors and staff controls, but the staff failed to relate to these issues and said that they do not tend to indulge in aggressive behaviour due to the any of these factors. All these studies that related aggressive behaviour in the past have one short coming. They did not undertake their studies in a highly secured setting where there are chances of experiencing aggressive behaviour. The main strength of these studies includes the comparison that they created in both the perception of the health care workers and the patients towards aggressive behaviour (Hek & Moule, 2006).

2.1 Clinical Problem Addressed

The paper discusses the issues of the patients that are in high secure forensic units and studies the main factors behind the aggressive behaviour of the patients of such facilities. According to the article, previous research has faced a number of factors pertaining to aggressive behaviour in such facilities toward health care workers. These factors range from environmental factors to interpersonal factors. Environmental factors that lead to aggressive behaviour may ...