Breaking down long-term chronic aggression within a forensic hospital system

Historically, patients with multiple acts of aggression, or chronic aggressors, have been studied as one large group. It was our objective to subdivide this group into those patients who engage in physical aggression consistently over multiple years and see if common characteristics of chronic aggressors could classify patients into an aggressive or nonaggressive group.

Within a forensic hospital system, patients who had committed 5 acts of physical aggression, per year, for 3 years (2010 and 2015) were reviewed. Data was collected on clinical and demographic characteristics that have shown to be associated with chronically aggressive patients and compared to nonaggressive matched controls. Data collection and analysis were completed to determine if the variables could classify patients into an aggressive or nonaggressive group.

Analysis showed that 2 variables, the presence of a cognitive disorder and a history of suicidal behaviors were significant in the univariate and multivariate analyses. The 2 variables were able to correctly classify 76.7% of the cases.

A cognitive disorder, a history of suicidal behavior, and increased age were factors associated with this subgroup of aggressive patients. Clinicians may want to explore treatment programs aimed at these clinical factors including cognitive rehabilitation and social cognition treatments, which have been shown to reduce aggression in cognitively impaired populations.