Researchers conducted focus groups in this qualitative study of staff in mental healthcare settings and assessed the barriers and facilitators to incident reporting. The authors identified unique challenges to incident reporting in mental health, including the incidence of violence and aggressive behavior. Participants often underreported violent or aggressive events because they attributed the behavior to the patient’s diagnosis, and cited dissatisfaction with how reported incidents were handled by police.

This qualitative study used observation, semi-structured interviews, and document review to outline the needs for greater collaboration and effective teamwork in mental health care.

The authors analyzed untoward events in psychiatric wards and found them more likely to coincide with a high male patient population, staff absences, and the occurrence of other incidents.