Abstract
During outreaching crisis visits, crisis team members run the risk of being confronted with aggressive behavior from their patients. To prevent dangerous situations, a method to assess risks in advance, on the basis of information received before the visit to the patient in crisis, could prove useful. During a two-year period, crisis team members completed a checklist before visiting patients in psychiatric crises. After each crisis visit, if there had been any aggression, this was recorded by means of the SOAS-R. In 51 of 499 crisis visits (10%) aggression was documented. The results indicate that the predictive validity of the presented checklist for occurrences of aggression may be fair-to-good. Use of the checklist in everyday crisis team practice seems recommendable as it structures the way risks are assessed before entering a potentially dangerous situation.
