The function of aggression in forensic psychiatric patients
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The function of aggression amongst male and female psychiatric patients: Exploring the link with anger and impulsivity
IRAS ID
125062
Contact name
Najat Khalifa
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Nottingham
Research summary
Aggressive incidents commonly occur in psychiatric hospital settings (Daffern, Howells & Ogloff, 2007a). Assessment of aggressive behaviour can be completed through functional analysis, which refers to an exploration of the purpose of challenging behaviour. Studies specifically exploring the function of aggressive behaviour amongst psychiatric inpatients has been relatively neglected (Daffern & Howells, 2002). Daffern, Howells and Ogloff (2007b) developed an instrument called the Assessment and Classification of Function (ACF) with the objective to assess the functions of aggression among patients in forensic psychiatric settings. The two initial studies conducted utilising the ACF found that the most common function of aggression were to express anger among patients in high secure psychiatric settings (Daffern and Howells, 2009; Daffern et al., 2007b). The generalizability of previous findings in the field is currently unknown. The proposed study aims to further investigate the function of inpatient aggression using the ACF, thus is in a different setting and with a different population group.
Both anger and impulsivity has been found to be associated with aggressive behaviour (Wang & Diamond, 1999; Komarovskaya, Loper, & Warren, 2007). The proposed study aims to explore whether anger and impulsivity, as measured using the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory – II (STAXI-II, Speilberger, 1999) and Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 (BIS-11; Patton, Stanford, & Barratt, 1995), is related to the function of aggression.
REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 1 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/EM/0109
Date of REC Opinion
20 Mar 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion