Social climate and aggression in IDD services

Journal of Intellectual Disabilities and Offending Behaviour, Ahead of Print. Purpose The purpose of this paper is to adapt a social climate measure for use within a forensic intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) service and examine perceptions of social climate and the links with patient aggression across three levels of security. Design/methodology/approach Four staff participated in a focus group to discuss how the Essen Climate Evaluation Schema (EssenCES) could be adapted for IDD patients. Subsequently, a pilot study with three patients highlighted some difficulties in administering the adapted measure. Alterations in the administration of the measure were implemented with a further ten patients residing across three levels of security. The EssenCES was adapted to include more visual prompts to assist in the patients ’ completion of the measure. The frequency of aggressive incidents in each of the three settings was also collated. Findings Statistical analysis revealed a non-significant trend where positive social climate ratings increased as the security level decreased. There was a significant difference i n the frequency of aggressive incidents across the three levels of security; however, there were no significant relationships found between the questionnaire ratings and the frequency of incidents. Research limitations/implications The results lacked statistical power due to the low number of part icipants. Further studies with adapted social climat...
Source: Journal of Intellectual Disabilities and Offending Behaviour - Category: Criminology Source Type: research