De-escalation techniques for psychosis-induced aggression or agitation

Aggression is a disposition, a willingness to inflict harm, regardless of whether this is behaviourally or verbally expressed and regardless of whether physical harm is sustained.De-escalation is a psychosocial intervention for managing people with disturbed or aggressive behaviour. Secondary management strategies such as rapid tranquillisation, physical intervention and seclusion should only be considered once de-escalation and other strategies have failed to calm the service user.

To investigate the effects of de-escalation techniques in the short-term management of aggression or agitation thought or likely to be due to psychosis.

We searched Cochrane Schizophrenia Group's Study-Based Register of Trials (latest search 7 April, 2016).

Randomised controlled trials using de-escalation techniques for the short-term management of aggressive or agitated behaviour. We planned to include trials involving adults (at least 18 years) with a potential for aggressive behaviour due to psychosis, from those in a psychiatric setting to those possibly under the influence of alcohol or drugs and/or as part of an acute setting as well. We planned to include trials meeting our inclusion criteria that provided useful data.

We used the standard methodological procedures expected by Cochrane. Two review authors inspected all abstracts of studies identified by the search process. As we were unable to include any studies, we could not perform data extraction and analysis.

Of the 345 citations that were identified using the search strategies, we found only one reference to be potentially suitable for further inspection. However, after viewing the full text, it was excluded as it was not a randomised controlled trial.

Using de-escalation techniques for people with psychosis induced aggression or agitation appears to be accepted as good clinical practice but is not supported by evidence from randomised trials. It is unclear why it has remained such an under-researched area. Conducting trials in this area could be influenced by funding flow, ethical concerns - justified or not - anticipated pace of recruitment as well the difficulty in accurately quantifying the effects of de-escalation itself. With supportive funders and ethics committees, imaginative trialists, clinicians and service-user groups and wide collaboration this dearth of randomised research could be addressed.