Screening for Behavioral Health Patient Aggression in Emergency Departments to Reduce Workplace Violence.

Introduction: Patient violence in health care facilities occurs daily. Structured risk assessments, when regularly completed, have been effective in prompting interventions to reduce aggression in Behavioral Health (BH) settings.

Methods: This quasi-experimental study evaluated the effectiveness of the Dynamic Appraisal of Situational Aggression - Inpatient Version (DASA) validated screening tool to reduce aggressive outbursts in an emergency department (ED) setting with BH patients awaiting transfer to a psychiatric facility.