The Hand Test as a predictor of aggression for inpatient children within a psychiatric hospital
Abstract
The aim of this study was to predict aggressive patients within a children's psychiatric hospital using the Hand Test. The subjects of this study included fifty-eight children placed within a county psychiatric hospital ranging in age from six to fifteen years old. Patients' aggression was tracked by unit nurses and recreation therapists. Ratings of aggression were analyzed with responses from the Hand Test to test the hypotheses. The results did not support the hypothesis that aggressive patients could be predicted using the Acting-out Score. The second hypothesis was also not supported. Specifically, the data did not indicate that the more aggressive subjects expressed their aggressive responses using a verb without a subject noun relative to their percentage of other responses stated using a verb without a subject noun. Unexpectedly, the results indicated that the most aggressive patients gave more cooperative responses and the patients who gave more aggressive than cooperative responses were less likely to be aggressive, which is the opposite of what was hypothesized.
Subject Area
Psychotherapy|Psychological tests|Mental health
Recommended Citation
Kotten, Laurie, "The Hand Test as a predictor of aggression for inpatient children within a psychiatric hospital" (2001). ETD Collection for Pace University. AAI3029611.
https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/dissertations/AAI3029611
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