Measuring aggression with the staff observation aggression scale--revised.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The staff observation aggression scale (SOAS; Palmstierna & Wistedt, 1987) was developed to measure nature, number, as well as severity of aggressive incidents. In 1999, a revised version of the SOAS (i.e. the SOAS-R), with a more fine-grained severity scoring system, was presented. In the current paper, the development and testing of the revised severity scores of the SOAS-R are addressed. METHOD: In two consecutive studies, staff members recorded inpatient aggression on SOAS-R forms, but also expressed their opinion about the severity of incidents on 100 mm visual analogue scales (VASs). Correlations were calculated between SOAS and SOAS-R severity scores, on the one hand, and clinical judgements of severity, on the other. RESULTS: In both studies, revised SOAS severity scores were more closely related to clinical judgements of aggression severity than the original ones. CONCLUSION: The SOAS-R is a promising tool for research on the prevalence, severity and determinants of inpatient aggression.