Incidents of aggression in German psychiatric hospitals: Is there an increase?

Introduction: In a meta-analysis of international studies, 17% of admitted patients in psychiatric hospitals had shown violent behaviour towards others. Reported data from studies in Germany were considerably lower until now. However, studies referred to single hospitals and data quality was questionable. It is under discussion whether there is an increase of violent incidents.

Methods: In a group of 10 hospitals serving about half of the population of the Federal State of Baden-Wuerttemberg with 11 million inhabitants, the staff observation aggression scale, revised (SOAS-R) was introduced into the electronic charts as part of routine documentation. Data recording was strongly supported by staff councils and unions. Complete data is now available for the year 2019. For one hospital, data is available since 2006. Due to some doubts with respect to fully covering self-directed aggression, we restricted the analysis to aggression toward others and toward objects.

Results: In 2019, 1...