Measuring Aggression on Psychiatric Inpatient Units: Development and Testing of the Calgary General Hospital Aggression Scale

Abstract

During the pilot component of a study designed to document aggressive incidents on the psychiatric inpatient units and to provide practical information relating to such incidents, it became evident that there were problems with using the Staff Observation Aggression Scale. In order to conduct the proposed study a new scale needed to be developed. The Calgary General Hospital (CGH) Aggression Scale was generated to: (1) capture all types of aggressive behavior, including behaviors that are very mild as well as those that are more severe and (2) reflect behaviors exhibited by all types of patients, not just those that are only a small proportion of this hospital's inpatient population. In addition to an introduction to the CGH Aggression Scale, descriptive data resulting from the use of the new scale and data regarding the reliability of the new scale will be discussed