Nurses ' Attitudes Toward Causes And Management Of Aggressive And Violent Behavior Among Inpatients In Psychiatric Hospitals In Baghdad

Objectives: to assess nurses’ attitudes towards the causes and ways of management related to aggressive and violent behavior of inpatients and to find -out the relationship between attitudes towards general causes and management of aggressive and violent behavior of inpatients and some variables related to nurses such as ; age, gender, level of education, training with regards to the management of inpatient aggressive and violent behavior, and years of nurses experience in psychiatric hospitals Methodology: A descriptive, cross-sectional survey design was conducted on nurses working in inpatient ward at psychiatric hospitals from 21 th February to the 10 th May. A purposive (non-probability) sampling (N = 198) nurses,. The researcher used the Management of Aggression and Violence Attitude Scale (MAVAS) was designed to incorporate views related to the management of aggression and violence. The MAVAS questionnaire is self administered and consists of 27 close ended questions. The responses are spread over a 3point Likert scale, with a scoring between (1 – 3). Data were analyzed through descriptive statistical data analysis approach (Frequency ,percentage, and mean of score) and inferential statistical data analysis approach (Person's Correlation, and the Simple Linear Regression). Results: The results of the study revealed that mean of score of nurse's attitude toward internal, external, situational causes, cultural and gender causes of aggressive and violence behaviors respectively were (2.51, 2.10, 1.46, and 2.08) while the mean of score of nurse's attitude toward general management, use of medication, use of seclusion, restraint management respectively were (2.75, 2.27, 2.08, 2.69, and 2.5),and there were significant correlations between nurse's attitudes towered causes of aggressive and violent behavior and training courses regards to the causes and management of patient and years of nurses experience in psychiatric Hospital; r = (0.230**), (0.234**),and there were significant correlations between nurse's attitudes towered management of aggressive and violent behavior and age, gender, training courses regards to the causes and management of patient; r = (0.190**),(0.142*),(0.151*) . Conclusion: The study concluded that nurses attitudes towered causes and management of aggression and violence patients are complex and somewhat contradictory and can affect the way nurses manage this behavior; therefore, wide-ranging initiatives are needed to prevent and deal this type of challenging behavior. Recommendations: Educational programs concerning aggression and violence management are required to train and update nursing staff on provoking factors and proper methods of management of patients' aggression and violence, strongly advised the person working inpatient psychiatric wards should at least be registered psychiatric nurses, as this qualification would provide staff with a basic understanding of nature of aggression and therapeutic interventions ,and future research, focusing on a wider range of workplace variables is needed to shed light on the current study findings.