Predicting violent behavior in psychiatrically hospitalized boys.

A naturalistic study of violent behavior in a sample of 100 boys residing within an inpatient psychiatric facility is reported. Over 1000 recorded incidents of interpersonal aggression were used to explore patterns of male violence in a contextually defined setting. Findings include a proportionately greater incidence of violence in younger boys. Staff members, particularly males, were more likely to be the victims of interpersonal violence, but peers and staff were equally likely to be the target of aggressive behavior in general. Observable provocation in the social context, the age of the child, and choice of victim (staff vs. peer) were found to be important predictors within a logistic regression model of violence. An estimate of the predictive utility of a logistic model for the occurrence of violence was found to be too low for clinical purposes. An application of a descriptive statistical method to collections of incidents for five highly aggressive boys yielded idiopathic models of violent behavior. Predictive accuracy estimates from these models suggest that multivariate description of behavioral data can be a clinically useful tool in understanding and possibly preventing violence within defined contexts such as residential psychiatric facilities.