For its management , experts agreed in considering  verbal de-escalation  and  environmental modification techniques  as first choice , considering physical restraint as a last resort strategy .
BACKGROUND Psychomotor agitation is associated with different psychiatric conditions and represents an important issue in psychiatry .
Current recommendations on agitation in psychiatry are not univocal .
Actually , an improper assessment and management may result in unnecessary coercive or sedative treatments .
A thorough and balanced review plus an expert consensus can guide assessment and treatment decisions .
Predictors of imminent violence in psychiatric inpatients
Behavior and symptoms seen in 48 24‐h periods preceding violent episodes and 93 control observations were studied . Six behaviors were more common before violence : confusion , irritability , boisterousness , physical threats , verbal threats and attacks on objects . A logistic regression equation based on these behaviors in a r and omized half of the observations predicted the occurrence of subsequent violence in 92.1 % of the other half of the sample without any false positives , giving a sensitivity of 81.3 % and a specificity of 100 % . It is concluded that mentally ill people display the same behaviour before violent acts as we would expect in people without such disorder . The potential for short‐term prediction of violence seems good
For its management , experts agreed in considering  verbal de-escalation  and  environmental modification techniques  as first choice , considering physical restraint as a last resort strategy .
BACKGROUND Psychomotor agitation is associated with different psychiatric conditions and represents an important issue in psychiatry .
Current recommendations on agitation in psychiatry are not univocal .
Actually , an improper assessment and management may result in unnecessary coercive or sedative treatments .
A thorough and balanced review plus an expert consensus can guide assessment and treatment decisions .