A European perspective on psychiatric nursing and violent incidents: management, education and service organisation

The topic of violent incidents and its importance to inpatient psychiatric nursing practice is well recognised in the academic literature. However the awareness and profile of the issue in different European countries is highly variable. In this paper five European countries are compared: Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. Contextual factors are likely to determine the perception, recognition and acknowledgement of the problem. Those described in detail here are the organisation of psychiatric inpatient services, the training of psychiatric nurses, and the methods used by those nurses to control and contain disturbed patients. For each of these factors large variations exist between the countries considered. The conclusion is drawn that there is much scope for useful comparative research.