Page 79 - Reduction of coercive measures

and thereby may prevent or adequately address CB. Consequently, it may be hypothesized that with residents showing more attachment behavior, there is less need for coercive measures.
Because support staff are tasked with the safety of their clients and themselves and therefore also with the application of coercive measures, studying their characteristics may shed additional light on variations in the use of coercive measures. Staff members are guided by their beliefs, thoughts, and emotions regarding CB (Hastings & Brown, 2002; Meehan, Vermeer, & Windsor, 2000; Mérineau-Côté & Morin, 2014). Within the framework of attribution theory, Weiner (1985) distinguished between two categories of attributions. The first category of controllability regards the location of causes for behavior within or outside persons. The second category of stability regards whether the cause of the behavior is stable or temporary. Attributions affect cognitive and emotional reactions to other people’s behaviors, guide our expectations of the changeability of these behaviors, and thereby influence social interactions (Weiner, 1985; Willner & Smith, 2008). Applied to professional care, support staff may experience anger and aversion when they attribute challenging behavior to causes within the residents’ control. Staff may act in resignation when they attribute challenging to stable characteristics, whether these may be perceived as inside or outside the control of residents. Anger, aversion, and resignation may undermine supportive care giving and efforts to change suboptimal practices such as the use of coercive measures. In support of this hypothesis, Leggett and Silvester (2003) found associations between attributions of nurses and seclusion of patients in a psychiatric hospital. They found seclusion was used more often if nurses attributed challenging behavior as in control of patients. However, Willner and Smith (2008) concluded on the basis of their review of studies on attributions, emotions, and behavior of support staff in care for people with ID that support for the role of attributions was equivocal. Not all studies confirmed an association between type of attribution and staff behavior.
Independent from staff attributions of CB, staff self-efficacy with respect to intervening in CB may be related to reliance on coercive measures. Self-efficacy may either refer to expected ability to perform
Associate factors of coercive measures
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