Scatolia: psychosis to protest

This paper presents the case of a female patient in a special hospital who engaged in faecal smearing whilst in seclusion. A management investigation followed a complaint by a Nurse Manager regarding the reluctance of staff to clean the room whilst the patients remained disturbed. The investigation team adopted a triangulated method of interviews, literature review, survey and case presentations to study the issues involved. The results presented here suggest the emergence of similar issues from both the interview commentary and the tabulated data from the survey. There appears an intricate and complex dilemma facing those managing situations involving scatolic behaviour. There are issues of concern from diverse organizational settings that overlap between those persons who engage in scatolia who may be deemed mentally impaired, psychiatrically disordered, or protest behaviour.