Content area
Full text
Introduction
There have been a number of different definitions of climate in forensic and psychiatric institutions; these have included institutional milieu, therapeutic climate, organisational climate and social climate. [8] Day et al. (2012) highlight the difficulty in defining and operationalising what is meant by these terminologies. Social climate has been described as the atmosphere of a ward ([27] Moos and Houts, 1968). Wright (1993, as cited in [8] Day et al. , 2012) proposed that social climate is characterised by features, which distinguish organisations from one another, are relatively stable and influence the behaviour of members within the organisation. Relationships, treatment and system maintenance have been thought to comprise ward social climate ([28] Moos et al. , 1973). [37] Schalast et al. (2008) suggest that the social climate of psychiatric wards encompasses the extent to which the environment is supportive of therapy and therapeutic change, the perceived safety of the environment and the group cohesion among patients. The current study uses this definition to understand social climate as it has empirical support ([37] Schalast et al. , 2008) and is current and relevant to forensic psychiatric wards.
It has been recognised that social climate influences a variety of clinical and organisational outcomes related to staff and patients in forensic and psychiatric services ([38] Tonkin et al. , 2011). This highlights the importance of understanding the social climate of psychiatric wards. Social climate is dependent on the operations of the workplace and is changeable ([8] Day et al. , 2012). Therefore understanding the factors influencing social climate and adapting the operations of psychiatric institutions may help establish the optimum social climate in order to provide desirable outcomes for both staff and patients.
Measuring social climate
Historically, the Ward Atmosphere Scale (WAS; [27] Moos and Houts, 1968) was the standard tool used to measure the social climate of psychiatric wards. However, the WAS has been criticised for its items being outdated, lengthy administration time, poor statistical structure, lack of internal consistency, limited ability to replicate factor structure across samples and failure to assess perceived safety in social climate ([37] Schalast et al. , 2008). As a result of these criticisms [37] Schalast et al. (2008) developed the Essen Climate Evaluation Schema (EssenCES). The EssenCES is a...