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Learning disability care staff's emotional reactions to aggressive challenging behaviours: development of a
1Sub-Department of Clinical Health Psychology, University College London, UK.
Objectives:
To describe the development of a rating scale measure of caregivers' emotional reactions to aggressive challenging behaviour, and to report preliminary psychometric data for the scale.
Design:
Using previous research on staff working with people with learning disabilities, a range of likely emotional reactions to challenging behaviours were selected for possible inclusion in a rating scale measure.
Methods:
A total of 83 care staff from 23 community residences for people with learning disabilities rated their recent emotional reactions to aggressive challenging behaviour using 18 emotion items. A further sample of 18 care staff participated in a test-retest study after the initial stages of scale development.
Results:
A rating scale was developed on the basis of a factor analysis and further item analysis. The measure has two subscales: feelings of depression/anger (10 items), and feelings of fear/anxiety (5 items). The subscales have a high internal consistency, good test-retest reliability and are relatively unaffected by social desirability biases.
Conclusions:
The emotional reactions to aggressive challenging behaviour scale has excellent face and construct validity, and other preliminary psychometric data are promising. The scale has a number of potential research and clinical applications.