A Pilot Study to Calculate the sample size for the Prevalence of Aggression in Psychiatric Outpatient Setting.

Background: There is a rise in the number of invisible mental health problems like aggression in a developing country like India. There is scarce data available on the prevalence of aggression in psychiatric patients which has been collected in a systematic manner. Objective: A pilot study to calculate the sample size for the prevalence of aggression in psychiatric outpatient setting in a General Hospital Psychiatric Unit using Modified Overt Aggression Scale in twenty patients. Results: The prevalence of aggression was 20% in the pilot study. Conclusions: This pilot study enabled us to calculate the sample size accurately. This also facilitated the investigator to handle the shortcomings and modify the research protocol accordingly.