6th Edition of Neurology World Conference 2026

Abstract

Workplace violence has been a rising global issue in healthcare. The Dynamic Appraisal of Situational Aggression (DASA) was created as a clinical tool designed to assess the imminent risk of aggression among patients. It consists of seven behavioral items—such as irritability, impulsivity, verbal threats, and unwillingness to follow directions—that are scored from 0 to 7 based on the patient’s current presentation to allow for timely intervention. After the implementation of DASA at UI Health in January of 2024, it was found that aggressive incidents decreased by 20% across the hospital in six months. As the predictive validity of DASA at UI Health has yet to be measured, the goal of this project was to understand whether the DASA screening tool is accurately predicting episodes of aggression at UI Health. Data was taken from the Epic DASA Analytics Report looking at a 10-day span from July 4^th through July 14^th 2025 and 552 cases were analysed ranging across 21 departments. For each case, the highest DASA score in the first 24 hours of admission to the hospital was recorded, along with whether the patient exhibited signs of verbal or physical aggression. Comparing the False Positive Rate and Total Positive Rate via an ROC curve an AUC of 0.84 was reported indicating DASA does serve as an accurate predictor of aggression at UI Health. Of the 492 cases scored as 0 only 1% demonstrated aggression, as compared to the 6 cases scored as 6 and the 5 cases scored as 7 where 67% demonstrated aggression. While the OB ED, 4W Mother and Baby, and Surg-Onc departments recorded the highest number of total DASA entries, the Adult Psych, ED, and Neurology departments recorded highest DASA scores and episodes of aggression. Having determined that DASA is accurate predictor of aggression at UI Health, focusing on increasing DASA compliance in all departments at UI Health would prove to be beneficial for the long-term safety of healthcare workers.