Aims and method: To report the rates of violent and aggressive incidents at a drug treatment clinic using a newly introduced incident reporting tool (STARSWeb) and to describe the management strategies currently employed in the management of incidents at the centre. This involved the review of all completed incident reports for the year 2008 and the examination of relevant patient factors.

Results: There were 276 documented incidents at the centre in 2008. The majority of incidents (72.4%) involved verbal abuse and threatening behaviours. Males were responsible for the majority of incidents. Two-thirds of the clients’ urine samples were positive for illicit substances at the time of the incidents.

Clinical implications: Violent and aggressive incidents in healthcare settings continue to pose a real challenge to both service providers and service users. An accurate system of reporting of such incidents is indispensable in guiding policy development and management strategies. The STARSWeb system offers a significant improvement in incident reporting towards the attainment of these goals.