Accident and its correlates in a psychiatric hospital

The literature on accidental and violetn minor injuries in hospitals is reviewed. From it hypotheses about the causes and correlates of such accidents are derived. These theories are tested on a 2-year sample of accidents in a 2,400-patient mental hospital, using standard multivariate statistical procedures. Age, psychiatric disability, and sex prove to be correlates of rates of injury. Social disorganization is shown to be the intervening variable in the common theory that crowding leads to violent injury.