Measuring aggression with the staff observation aggression scale--revised

The staff observation aggression scale (SOAS; Palmstierna & Wistedt, 1987) was developed to measure nature, number, as well as severity of aggressive incidents. In 1999, a revised version of the SOAS (i.e. the SOAS-R), with a more fine-grained severity scoring system, was presented. In the current paper, the development and testing of the revised severity scores of the SOAS-R are addressed.

In two consecutive studies, staff members recorded inpatient aggression on SOAS-R forms, but also expressed their opinion about the severity of incidents on 100 mm visual analogue scales (VASs). Correlations were calculated between SOAS and SOAS-R severity scores, on the one hand, and clinical judgements of severity, on the other.

In both studies, revised SOAS severity scores were more closely related to clinical judgements of aggression severity than the original ones.

The SOAS-R is a promising tool for research on the prevalence, severity and determinants of inpatient aggression.