Jeopardy in community placement.

As part of a broader research effort, a survey of the adaptive behavior of 424 community-placed retarded persons was conducted through small group, tape-recorded interviews with their 109 caretakers. From 1252 incidents of problem behavior cited, 203 were judged to contain jeopardy. Seventy-seven percent of these incidents involved jeopardy to health and/or safety, 4 percent to general welfare, and 18 percent contained legal jeopardy. In 79 percent of incidents, the client jeopardized himself, in 12 percent he jeopardized a fellow client, and in 9 percent he jeopardized a member of the community at large. The evidence exposes need for full examination of this problem and ways to minimize it.