Staff Attributions for Aggression and their Relationship with Treatment Acceptability in Brain Injury Rehabilitation
Purpose: Studies in developmental disability and child psychology have shown that staff tend to rate non-aversive treatment procedures as more acceptable than aversive procedures in the management of behavioural difficulties. This study investigated if a similar trend in treatment acceptability exists in brain injury rehabilitation. It also considered staff attributions for aggression and how these relate to treatment acceptability.
Methodology: 113 staff participated in the questionnaire study.
Outcome: Results indicated that patterns of treatment acceptability were consistent with previous research in other areas. Also, staff external attributions for aggression were significantly more likely than an internal-personality atribution. However, those staff who did make an internal-personality attribution were significantly more likely to consider an aversive treatment approach as acceptable. Finally, psychotherapy was also included as a treatment option in this type of research for the first time. Psychotherapy was found to have the second highest acceptability rating of the nine treatments investigated. Implications for future rsearch and clinical practice are considered.