J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 1996; 8:186-193
Copyright © 1996 by American Neuropsychiatric Association
Assessment of children with the overt aggression scale
V Kafantaris, DO Lee, H Magee, G Winny, R Samuel, S Pollack and M Campbell
Department of Psychiatry, New York University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.
Aggressive behavior is difficult to capture with most available rating
instruments because it occurs with low frequency. The Overt Aggression
Scale (OAS) was designed to capture all incidents on a 24-hour basis. To
assess its usefulness, the OAS was piloted on 16 hospitalized, severely
aggressive children with conduct disorder. OAS ratings capture episodes of
aggressive behavior, measure trends in aggressive behavior over time, and
appear to reflect change associated with pharmacotherapy in hospitalized
children. This study suggests that the use of the OAS on a children's
psychiatric inpatient unit is appropriate and feasible for clinical as well
as research purposes.
