Little is currently known about the attitudes of psychiatric nurses toward patient
aggression, particularly from an international perspective. Attitudes toward patient
aggression of psychiatric nurses from five European countries were investigated using
a recently developed and tested attitude scale. Data were collected from a convenience
sample of 1,769 student nurses and psychiatric nurses. Regression analysis was performed
to identify personal and occupational characteristics of the respondents able to predict
their attitude toward aggression. Analysis of variance was used to identify significant
differences in attitudes between and among countries. Attitude was predicted by sex,
contractual status (full vs. part time), and the type of ward on which subjects worked.
With one exception (communicative attitude), attitudes differed across countries.
More research on attitude formation is needed to determine which factors account for
these differences.
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