MENTAL HEALTH PRACTICE

Mental Health Practice

Mental Health Practice

Introduction

Internationally mental health professionals have had a long-standing interest in studying aggression and violence in mental health settings. For many years the focus has been the 'aggressive mental health patient' and great efforts were made to develop accurate assessments for use by mental health staff. Researchers have worked, and are still working, with client observations (clinical assessment) and collated statistical data from populations (actuarial assessment) to identify characteristics of clients/patients who are consistently associated with violence They are also seeking to develop short-term indicators of imminent episodes (Jeffery, 1999).

Discussion

The last decade has seen other ...