Dangerous behavior and changes in treatment course.

The association of dangerous behavior with the course of subsequent treatment was examined by comparing treatment courses of 45 severely mentally disabled patients identified as dangerous after an incident of dangerous behavior was noted in their clinical records with treatment courses of 122 severely mentally disabled patients who had no recorded incidents of dangerous behavior. The correlation of dangerousness with subsequent restrictiveness of treatment is clearly present in 6 of the 9 variables examined; the relationship generalizes across two rather different CMHC sites.