Situational variables related to aggression in institutional settings

• We review research on situational variables related to aggression in institutional settings.
• Most research has focused on rates of violence with less attention paid to severity of violence.
• There remain mixed findings about victims and temporal aspects of institutional violence.

For decades, aggressive behavior among psychiatric inpatients has been identified as disruptive to the therapeutic environment and a workplace hazard. Most previous research has focused on individual patient risk factors with less attention paid to the situational, environmental, or therapeutic milieu factors that could influence violence rates. This review outlines the prominent areas discussed in situational factor research and presents recent theoretical models that integrate these factors. Based on the identified shortcomings in the available literature, suggestions for future research directions are offered.