and outpatient services had the highest number (n 1⁄4 84) of workplace violent incidents per year among 61 hospital subdivisions evaluated at the medical center. The next highest-ranking division was the medical surgical emer- gency department with 42 incidents. The Department of Psychiatry consists of an acute hospital of 66 adult beds, 25 child and adolescent beds, 2 partial hospital programs (patients attend 5 days per week but are at home in the evenings and weekends) comprising a total of 50 beds and a large clinic with numerous subspecialties having 42 041 outpatient visits in 2002 and 40 571 in 2003. The psychiatric practice environment described includes forces brought on by the closing of the local State Psychiatric Facility Secure Care Unit, lack of eligibility for acute admissions in the State Hospital system, budgetary cuts in social services over the last 3 to 4 years, as well as cutbacks in services by Health Maintenance Organizations.<br>In recent years, there appeared to have been an increase in violent incidents occurring across the spec- trum of care in the department, coinciding with the factors mentioned above. In response to these concerns, a multidisciplinary Workplace Violence Committee con- sisting of psychiatrists, biostatisticians, psychologists, nurses, administrators, data managers, social workers, security services, educators in personal safety and an attorney convened to develop strategies to address the problem.<br>The committee designed a survey instrument to study the prevalence of endangerment, threats and assaults and to determine the work sites of greatest incident frequency as well as perceived safety. In addition, this instrument focused on trends in the incidence of violent events over various time periods and the impact of length of staff experience on frequency of endangerment, threats and assaults. The source of violence perpetration towards staff was studied, as was the proclivity to press charges as a function of whether the perpetrator was a patient or not. The reporting of violent events to police and subsequent perpetrator outcomes was also examined.
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