Predictive Ability of the Dynamic Appraisal of Situational Aggression-Inpatient Version (DASA-IV) in Medical-Surgical Units

Abstract

Background: Workplace violence persists in health care with nurses reporting physical and verbal abuse from aggressive patients causing emotional stress and lost workdays. The Dynamic Appraisal of Situational Aggression–Inpatient Version (DASA-IV) was developed to measure risk for aggression in patients with behavioral health conditions in psychiatric and emergency department settings. The DASA-IV has not been validated with adult patients admitted to medical-surgical units. Objective: To determine whether DASA-IV scores are predictive of aggressive events in adults hospitalized on medical-surgical units. Methods: This multisite study used a case-control design. DASA-IV scores and acts of aggression were extracted from the medical record retrospectively to validate the appraisal’s predictability. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and area under the curve (AUC) were used to correlate DASA-IV scores with aggressive events. Results: DASA-IV assessments (N=156 999; mean [SD] 10.1 [10.7]/patient; range 1-220) were collected from 13 611 patients. Patients were primarily White (86.1%) and female (51.7%). Aggression (n = 509 patients; 3.7%) was significantly associated with older age, male sex, smoking, illicit drug use, and high DASA-IV scores. AUC of the ROC analysis for the DASA-IV showed a 97% probability (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.964-0.977) that an aggressive patient would have a higher score on the DASA-IV than a nonaggressive patient. Binary logistic regression predicted that for every point increase in the DASA-IV, there was a 3.51 (95% CI 3.38-3.63) times increased risk for aggression ( B  = 1.255, SE = 0.18, Wald = 4766.6, P < .001). Conclusions: This study is the first to validate use of the DASA-IV in medical-surgical populations, demonstrating predictive ability for aggressive incidents. The DASA-IV can be used successfully in medical-surgical populations for early identification of potential aggression.