Risk assessment of self- and other-directed aggression in adolescent psychiatric inpatient units.

Objective: To examine the predictive validity of unstructured clinical risk assessment and associated risk factors for aggression in predicting self- and other-directed aggression in the first 4 weeks of admission for patients admitted to an Australian adolescent psychiatric inpatient facility.

Method: A retrospective review of patient records was conducted at the Marian Drummond Adolescent Unit during late 2009 for the period of September 2006 to July 2009. Information collected included admission risk assessment ratings, aggressive incident reports, patient diagnoses, sex and history of aggression and self-harming behaviour.