Aggression in Psychiatric Unit: What is the Feeling of Psychiatric Nurses?

The client directed aggressive and violent behaviour towards nurses working in psychiatric setting is a universal issue. The nurses spend most of the time with clients, which make them more vulnerable to any form of injuries during the process of managing aggressive clients without having the required knowledge and skill. Around 20–45% of hospitalized clients with psychiatric disorders show violent behaviour.

To identify the feelings of psychiatric nurses on client directed violence with a view to develop an aggression management and violence prevention training programme for nurses working in psychiatric setting.

Qualitative approach was used for the study. A focus group discussion was conducted among 30 psychiatric nurses identified by the nurse administrators of the selected hospitals. Convenient sampling technique was adopted for selecting the participants. Thematic analysis was used in this study to identify and analyze important themes. Results: The following themes were derived from the thematic analysis: Fronting vs management of aggressive clients, facilitating vs facilities available for aggression management, traditional vs training, prevention vs management, suggestion vs support from the hospital management, and expectation vs engagement in an aggression management training programme.

An aggression management and violence prevention training programme was designed based on the educational interventions derived from the focus group discussion.