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theses

The attributional theory of help-giving and aggression proposes that attributions about the causes of problematic behaviors in others, can be categorized along a continuum of internality /externality and controllability/non-controllability (Rudolph et al., 2004). Mental health staff who attribute consumers’ violent behavior to internal and controllable factors, collectively known as “responsibility”, have shown increased feelings of anger toward that consumer (Keenan, 2010) and exhibited fewer helping behaviors (Stanley & Standen, 2000). This study used bivariate correlations and multiple regression with data from a cross sectional survey of staff from New Jersey’s three civil state psychiatric hospitals (n=232) to explore the relationships between psychiatric inpatient staff’s exposure to violence, their attributions about responsibility for violence, and their attitudes about coercive interventions to manage violence. Though effect sizes were low, results showed a positive association between staff attributions of consumer responsibility for violence and their belief in the value of coercion to manage violence. Staff’s optimism that patients can change mediated staff’s willingness to provide extra effort to consumers who commit violence. Exposure to violence was not found to be related to either staff attributions of patient responsibility for violence or staff’s beliefs about the value of coercion to manage violence. A discussion of the findings in the context of the literature, limitations of the study, and recommendations for future work are addressed.

ETD_10043

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

doi:10.7282/t3-stcx-qx31

ETD doctoral

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