Autismikirjon häiriöön voi liittyä erityispiirteitä, jotka voivat alentaa kynnystä väkivaltaiselle käyttäytymiselle ja väkivaltarikoksille sekä myös rikoksen uhriksi joutumiselle. Väkivaltarikollisuus ei tutkimusten valossa ole autismikirjon potilailla muuta väestöä yleisempää. Toisaalta vankipopulaatioon ja oikeuspsykiatriseen hoitoon kertyy autismikirjon potilaita jonkin verran enemmän, kuin mikä heidän osuutensa on väestössä. Potilaiden psyykkisen hyvinvoinnin kohentaminen ja rikosten uusimisen vähentäminen edellyttävät nimenomaan tälle potilasryhmälle suunniteltuja interventioita. Suomessa on kehitetty kehityksellisen neuropsykiatrisen diagnoosin saaneiden vankien kuntoutuksen mallia.

Childhood aggression and its resulting consequences inflict a huge burden on affected children, their relatives, teachers, peers and society as a whole. Aggression during childhood rarely occurs in isolation and is correlated with other symptoms of childhood psychopathology. In this paper, we aim to describe and improve the understanding of the co-occurrence of aggression with other forms of childhood psychopathology. We focus on the co-occurrence of aggression and other childhood behavioural and emotional problems, including other externalising problems, attention problems and anxiety-depression. The data were brought together within the EU-ACTION (Aggression in Children: unravelling gene-environment interplay to inform Treatment and InterventiON strategies) project. We analysed the co-occurrence of aggression and other childhood behavioural and emotional problems as a function of the child's age (ages 3 through 16years), gender, the person rating the behaviour (father, mother or self) and assessment instrument. The data came from six large population-based European cohort studies from the Netherlands (2x), the UK, Finland and Sweden (2x). Multiple assessment instruments, including the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL), the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and Multidimensional Peer Nomination Inventory (MPNI), were used. There was a good representation of boys and girls in each age category, with data for 30,523 3- to 4-year-olds (49.5% boys), 20,958 5- to 6-year-olds (49.6% boys), 18,291 7- to 8-year-olds (49.0% boys), 27,218 9- to 10-year-olds (49.4% boys), 18,543 12- to 13-year-olds (48.9% boys) and 10,088 15- to 16-year-olds (46.6% boys). We replicated the well-established gender differences in average aggression scores at most ages for parental ratings. The gender differences decreased with age and were not present for self-reports. Aggression co-occurred with the majority of other behavioural and social problems, from both externalising and internalising domains. At each age, the co-occurrence was particularly prevalent for aggression and oppositional and ADHD-related problems, with correlations of around 0.5 in general. Aggression also showed substantial associations with anxiety-depression and other internalizing symptoms (correlations around 0.4). Co-occurrence for self-reported problems was somewhat higher than for parental reports, but we found neither rater differences, nor differences across assessment instruments in co-occurrence patterns. There were large similarities in co-occurrence patterns across the different European countries. Finally, co-occurrence was generally stable across age and sex, and if any change was observed, it indicated stronger correlations when children grew older. We present an online tool to visualise these associations as a function of rater, gender, instrument and cohort. In addition, we present a description of the full EU-ACTION projects, its first results and the future perspectives.

The invasion of non-native species into an ecosystem can markedly alter the structure and functioning of the system. Yet, we have limited knowledge of the factors that determine invasion success. Behavioural interactions have been suggested as critical determinants of invasion success in animals, but the exact mechanisms are less well known. We investigated if density-dependent behavioural interactions could have facilitated the invasion of the shrimp Palaemon elegans into the spawning habitat of the threespine stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus in the Baltic Sea. This was done by manipulating the densities of the two species in mesocosms. We found the stickleback to dominate behaviourally over the shrimp through higher aggression, but that the impact on the shrimp was density-dependent; a high density of sticklebacks increased aggressive interactions, which caused the shrimps to decrease their activity and restrict their habitat use to dense vegetation, while a low density of sticklebacks had no impact on the distribution and activity of the shrimps. The density of the shrimps had no impact on stickleback behaviour. These results suggest that the present density of the stickleback has allowed the invasion of the shrimp into the habitat. However, a current increase in stickleback abundance caused by human-induced ecological disturbances could limit the further expansion of the shrimp. Thus, our results indicate that a behavioural mechanism-density-dependent aggression-can influence invasion success and subsequent population expansion. At a broader level, our results stress the importance of considering density-dependent behavioural interactions when investigating the mechanisms behind invasion success.

When several personality traits covary, they form a behavioral syndrome. Understanding the evolutionary dynamics of a behavioral syndrome requires knowledge of its genetic underpinning. At present, our understanding of the genetic basis of behavioral syndromes is largely restricted to domestic and laboratory animals. Wild behavioral syndromes are mostly inferred on the basis of phenotypic correlations, and thus make the “phenotypic gambit” of assuming that these phenotypic correlations capture the underlying genetic correlations. On the basis of 3 years of reciprocal cross-fostering of 2896 nestlings of 271 families within a pedigreed population, we show that the nestling personality traits handling aggression, breathing rate, and docility are heritable (h2 = 16–29%), and often have a pronounced “nest-of-rearing” variance component (10–15%), but a relatively small “nest-of-origin” variance component (0–7%). The three nestling personality traits form a behavioral syndrome on the phenotypic and genetic level. Overall, the phenotypic correlations provide a satisfactory description of the genetic ones, but significantly underestimate the magnitude of one of the pairwise genetic correlations, which mirrors the conclusion based on domestic and laboratory studies.

Homing puppies before 8 weeks has been associated with lower instance of avoidance and types of aggression in adult dogs. The current study aimed to further assess the impact of homing age on these behaviours in adult dogs. Finnish dogs provide an interesting population for this further study, as based on the clinical experience of the co-authors, puppies in Finland are predominantly reared in domestic maternal environments before first homing, which was not the case in the countries where previous studies have been performed. Online questionnaire-based data on frequencies of problematic behaviours (n = 3689) were analysed using Chi-Square, comparing adult dogs homed at 6-7 weeks (6-7), 8 weeks (8), 9-12 weeks (9-12) and 13-16 weeks (13-16). 31% were 6-7, 41% 8, 23% 9-12, 5% 13-16. If an overall association was observed, pairwise comparisons between homing age groups were conducted. All of the dogs included in the study came from domestic maternal environments, where the puppies were kept in the breeders' living quarters. Homing age was associated with avoiding, growling and snapping at unfamiliar people when away from the home environment (p = 0.004, p = 0.02 and p = 0.008, respectively); avoiding, barking at, growling at and snapping at unfamiliar people visiting the home (p = 0.02, p = 0.02, p = 0.04 and p = 0.03, respectively) and barking at unfamiliar dogs when away from the home environment (p = 0.001). With one exception, dogs homed later than 8 weeks, namely during weeks 9-12 and 13-16, had higher than expected prevalence of avoidance and aggressive behaviour than dogs homed at other ages. The exception being that for the measure, barking at unfamiliar dogs away from the home environment, there were higher than expected values in dogs homed at 8 and 13-16 weeks and lower in dogs homed at 6-7 and 9-12 weeks. This research supports the view that homing age is associated with instances of avoidance behaviour and some types of aggression in adult dogs.

Background: Patient aggression and violence against staff members and other patients are common concerns in psychiatric units. Many structured clinical risk assessment tools have recently been developed. Despite their superiority to unaided clinical judgments, staff has shown ambivalent views towards them. A constant worry of staff is that the results of risk assessments would not be used. The aims of the present study were to investigate what were the interventions applied by the staff of a psychiatric admission ward after a high risk patient had been identified, how frequently these interventions were used and how effective they were. Methods: The data were collected in a naturalistic setting during a 6-month period in a Finnish psychiatric admission ward with a total of 331 patients with a mean age of 42.9 years (SD 17.39) suffering mostly from mood, schizophrenia-related and substance use disorders. The total number of treatment days was 2399. The staff assessed the patients daily with the Dynamic Appraisal of Situational Aggression (DASA), which is a structured violence risk assessment considering the upcoming 24 h. The interventions in order to reduce the risk of violence following a high DASA total score (>= 4) were collected from the patients' medical files. Inductive content analysis was used. Results: There were a total of 64 patients with 217 observations of high DASA total score. In 91.2% of cases, at least one intervention aiming to reduce the violence risk was used. Pro re nata (PRN)-medication, seclusion and focused discussions with a nurse were the most frequently used interventions. Non-coercive and non-pharmacological interventions like daily activities associated significantly with the decrease of perceived risk of violence. Conclusion: In most cases, a high score in violence risk assessment led to interventions aiming to reduce the risk. Unfortunately, the most frequently used methods were psychopharmacological or coercive. It is hoped that the findings will encourage the staff to use their imagination when choosing violence risk reducing intervention techniques.

Niin julkisuuden henkilöt, yksityiset kansalaiset kuin instituutiotkin saattavat kohdata huolta herättäviä väkivaltauhkauksia. Etenkin verkossa uhkaukset lisääntyvät. Kaikki uhkailijat eivät muodosta kohteelle tosiasiallista uhkaa, mutta on tärkeää tunnistaa ne tilanteet, joissa uhka on todellinen, jotta voidaan ryhtyä toimenpiteisiin väkivallan riskin toteutumisen pienentämiseksi. Uhkaukset voivat olla impulsiivisia ja välittömiä tai suunnitelmallisia. Väkivallalla uhkaaminen on yhdistetty persoonallisuushäiriöihin, etenkin antisosiaaliseen, narsistiseen, paranoidiseen ja epävakaaseen persoonallisuuteen. Erityisesti psykopaattiset persoonallisuuspiirteet liittyvät suunnitelmalliseen kohdennettuun väkivaltaan. Uhkaus saattaa itsessään olla rikos ja koskea suunnitteilla olevaa vakavaa väkivaltarikosta, jonka tietoon saadessaan terveydenhuollon toimijallakin saattaa olla ilmoitusvelvollisuus poliisille.

Suomalaisista vangeista noin 80 %:lla on päihderiippuvuus, ja päihteiden käyttö on merkittävä suomalaisten terveyttä ja turvallisuutta uhkaava tekijä liittyen erityisesti väkivalta- ja liikennerikoksiin. Alkoholi, amfetamiini ja bentsodiatsepiinit altistavat väkivaltaiselle ja impulsiiviselle käyttäytymiselle, ja noin 80 % Suomen henkirikoksista tehdään päihteiden vaikutuksen alaisena. Rattijuopumuksissa huumeet ja pääasiassa keskushermostoon vaikuttavat lääkkeet (PKV-lääkkeet) ovat nousseet yhä merkittävimmiksi, ja rattijuoppojen aiheuttamissa onnettomuuksissa kuolleista noin joka kuudes on rattijuopon kyydissä ollut ja joka kymmenes täysin sivullinen. Lääkäreillä on ilmoitusvelvollisuus poliisille ajoterveysvaatimusten täyttämättömyydestä, ja hoidon yhdistäminen ajokieltoon on todettu tehokkaaksi keinoksi rattijuopumusten ehkäisyssä. Väkivaltarikolliset ovat persoonallisuudeltaan häiriintyneempiä, eikä nykyinen lainsäädäntö ole mahdollistanut tehokasta sekundaaripreventiota hoidollisin keinoin.

Background: Physicians commonly suffer from workplace aggression and its negative consequences. Previous studies have shown that stressors such as job demands increase the risk of inappropriate treatment at workplace. Poorly functioning, and constantly changing information systems form a major work stressor for physicians. The current study examined the association between physicians’ stress attributed to information systems (SAIS) and their experiences of workplace aggression. Workplace aggression covered physical and non-physical aggression, perpetrated by coworkers, patients, patient’s relatives, or supervisors. Methods: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted. The participants included 2786 physicians (67.4% women) who were sampled randomly from the registry of Finnish Medical Association, which covers almost all of the Finnish physician population. First, bivariate associations were studied among participant characteristics, SAIS and workplace aggression. Logistic regression analysis was then used to further determine how SAIS was associated with the likelihood of experiencing different types of aggression. Results: Higher levels of SAIS were associated with higher likelihood of aggression with regard to all types of aggression, except non-physical aggression perpetrated by patients or relatives. The demographic factors (work-sector, gender, age) did not have a noticeable influence on the association between SAIS and aggression. Conclusions: The present results build on previous evidence on the prevalence of SAIS and its negative effects on healthcare workers. Since SAIS may increase the risk of experiencing aggression, it is possible that SAIS also endangers the wellbeing of physicians and thereby the quality of patient care. Resourcing time and training during introduction of a new IS could alleviate time pressure and thus stress attributed to managing new information systems. The role of organizational climate and general workload in arousing SAIS and aggression should be examined in future studies.