Violence in a Finnish forensic psychiatric hospital

Abstract

HJO. Violence in a Finnish forensic psychiatric hospital. Nord J Psychiatry 2000;54:269-273. Oslo. ISSN 0803-9488.A study of the number, perpetrator, time and target of violent behaviour was carried out in a Finnish state forensic psychiatric hospital, Vanha Vaasa Hospital -Gamla Vasa Sjukhus. Forensic psychiatric patients and patients difficult-to-treat are treated in the hospital. According to the results the number of violent incidents has been quite small in the hospital during the time of the study in relation to violence in similar units and hospitals. The patients treated on account of their dangerousness and difficult propensities were the most violent, not the patients who had been charged with their violent acts. Only a small number of the patients behaved violently in the hospital. The relative number of violent female patients was larger than that of the male patients. Trained nurses and the patients themselves were found to be more often the target of the violent behaviour of particularly violent patients, whereas less violent patients directed their aggressiveness against objects. Violent incidents were more frequent during nights and at the time of patients' activities, but especially during the change of working shifts. The fewest violent incidents occurred in autumn.• Forensic psychiatric hospital, Forensic psychiatric patients, Violence.

Chronic Violent Patients in an Inpatient Psychiatric Hospital

“…First, we replicated the observation that a small subgroup of individuals are involved in a large number of violent episodes in the inpatient setting (e.g., Chang & Lee, 2004;Decaire et al, 2006;Kraus & Sheitman, 2004;Owen et al, 1998;Weizmann-Henelius & Suutala, 2000). The proportion of patients identified as CVPs (i.e., 1.4% to 21.1%) has varied greatly in prior investigations mainly because of methodological and sampling differences across studies.…”

“…J. Cooper et al, 1983;Decaire et al, 2006;Tam et al, 1996;Weizmann-Henelius & Suutala, 2000). CVPs were involved in more than 60% of all recorded violent episodes during the 1-year study period.…”

“…This small group of violent patients has been identified by different research teams located in the United States (Kraus & Sheitman, 2004), Canada (e.g., Decaire, Bedard, Riendeau, & Forrest, 2006), Finland (Weizmann-Henelius & Suutala, 2000), Australia (e.g., , Norway (Bjorkly, 1999), and Taiwan (Chang & Lee, 2004). Various labels have been proposed to describe these patients, such as "repeatedly violent," "persistently violent," "repeat assaulter," and "chronic violent patients" (CVPs).…”

Violent behaviour in a forensic psychiatric hospital in Finland: an analysis of violence incident reports

“…), and in a study of general psychiatric patients; one third of the physically violent patients were female (Ogloff & Daffern ). It was reported previously from the other forensic psychiatric hospital in Finland that female patients caused three fourths of violent incidents (Weizmann‐Henelius & Suutala ). In the present study, female patients caused only one fourth of the incidents.…”

“…Previous studies have shown that only a minority of mental patients generates the majority of institutional violence (Weizmann‐Henelius & Suutala , Almvik et al . , Lussier et al .…”