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Violence in the community: study of community mental health teams

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Nigel Eastwood
Affiliation:
Cornwall Healthcare Trust St Lawrence's Hospital Bodmin, Cornwall
Robert Pugh*
Affiliation:
Norfolk Mental Health Care NHS Trust, Hellesdon Hospital, Drayton High Road, Norwich NR6 5BE
*
Correspondence
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The experience of violence towards members of community mental health teams was explored using a questionnaire. Response rates were 97%. The number of staff experiencing various types of violence was greater than in previous studies. Staff were generally well-informed about the theoretical issues and had sensible attitudes towards the risk of violence. Appropriate training was found to be lacking and other Department of Health and Social Security recommendations were not being followed. These included information about whereabouts of staff, and mechanisms for communication. We recommend that training issues are addressed locally and that safe theory should be translated into safe practice which is regularly monitored.

Type
Original Papers
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

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