Intrahospital relocation of psychiatric patients and effects on aggression

Aggression is a recurring problem with psychiatric patients and can pose special problems on inpatient units. The purpose of this study were to identify changes in patients aggression as a consequence of routine individual relocation and to identify the relationship of certain variables with patterns of aggression. Using an adaptation of the Overt Aggression Scale (Yudofsky, Silver, Jackson, Endicott, & Williams, 1986), data were collected from the patient records of 201 individuals who had been admitted to a state hospital and subsequently transferred to another ward in the same hospital. There was a phase by day interaction with the day-to-day pattern of aggression in the pretransfer phase differing significantly from that in the posttransfer phase. The highest mean aggression for a single day was the day following transfer; the second highest was the day before transfer. There were main effects for age and number of hospital admissions.