Citation

Strand SJM, Selenius H. Nord. J. Psychiatry 2019; 73(4-5): 248-256.

Affiliation

Department of Special Education , Stockholm University , Stockholm , Sweden.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/08039488.2019.1613447

PMID

31081436

Abstract

PURPOSE and aim: Out from the sparse literature on risk assessment for violence committed by women the Female Additional Manual (FAM) was developed to be a complement to the HCR-20v2. The aim of this study was to investigate and compare the psychometrics of the HCR-20v2 with and without the FAM on risk for inpatient physical violence for female forensic psychiatric patients.

METHODS: The participants were 100 female patients admitted to forensic psychiatric care in a high-security clinic, assessed by clinicians with the HCR-20v2 during their admission. Researchers performed the FAM, both retrospectively and prospectively. The follow-up period was 12 months before being discharged.

RESULTS: Four main results were found; first, many risk factors were present although the summary risk ratings were mainly low to moderate. Secondly, the reliability was in general good, where the HCR-20v2 mainly showed higher reliability without than with the FAM, indicating that FAM risk factors did equal or did not contribute to a higher reliability. Third, the internal validity was higher for the HCR-20v2 than for the FAM. Risk factors correlated stronger with the summary risk ratings for the HCR-20v2 than for the FAM. Fourth, the validity for inpatient physical violence was high for the total score of both the HCR-20v2 and the FAM, but contradictory to previous finding the validity for summary risk ratings was not significant.

CONCLUSIONS: The results support the use of HCR-20v2 when assessing risk for inpatient violence for female forensic psychiatric patients, but with only some support for adding or changing risk factors according to the FAM.

Language: en

Keywords

Risk assessment; female patients; forensic psychiatric care; inpatient violence