New Study Says Mental Health Wards See Rise in Aggression In Connection With Heatwaves

Mental health wards see an increase in aggression with patients when things start to heat up, according to recent research that was published in the BJPsych Open journal.

How did they determine this? They looked at local weather data and compared that with incident reporting data and sought to look if there might be any connection. They found that hot weather had a potential link.

They noticed 15% more aggressive incidents on days that were over 30°C

That 15% was an increase compared to what was seen on days below that 30°C temp.

They also noticed a relationship between hot days, those over 30°C, and the number of aggressive incidents. The warmer the weather got the more incidents they would see being reported, to a peak of little more than 11 per day on the hottest days they looked at.

Researchers are concluding that temperature might have played a significant role then in increasing those aggression reports, rather than another factor contributing.

They took records from several mental health hospitals and looked at more than 10 years of data, comparing that with weather reports etc.

This also isn't the first time that researchers have looked at the potential connection between warmer weather and violent activities. They have also previously suggested that violent crimes might increase during times of warmer weather. Researchers in earlier studies have concluded that they've noticed a dependence aggressive crimes might have on temperature, noticing that in times of higher temperatures than usual such as summer months like June and July, that they would also observe an increase in aggressive crimes.

The possible link between aggression and heat isn't new to scientists but they are continuing to understand it further and this recent research adds to that.