A systematic review of structured group interventions with mentally disordered offenders

Abstract

Calculated effect sizes give optimism for the efficacy of structured group interventions with mentally disordered offenders. It is important now that more rigorous and consistent research methods be applied, even in secure hospital environments. Some suggestions towards achieving this are offered, drawing from the work to date, inclusive of the need for agreement on common outcome measures and development of networks to improve sample sizes.

A Critical Analysis of Clinical Evidence from High Secure Forensic Inpatient Services

“…Previous approaches to systematically reviewing the forensic mental health literature have synthesized research evidence for forensic patients on, epidemiology (Badger, Nursten, Williams, & Woodward, 1999), service provision (Hagell & Bourke Dowling, 1999;Lart, Payne, Beaumont, MacDonald, & Mistry, 1999) and group and therapeutic community interventions (Duncan, Nicol, Alastair, & Dalgleish, 2006;Lees, Manning, & Rawlings, 1999). There has been no systematic review focused on the interventions provided in high secure forensic inpatient hospitals.…”

Group psychoeducation for forensic and dangerous non-forensic long-term patients with schizophrenia: A pilot study

“…A recently published meta-analysis conducted by Lincoln, Wilhelm & Nestoriuc 15 suggests, however, that psychoeducation for patients only can not be considered effective. Psychoeducation is nowadays commonly provided within forensic settings 16 , but the systematic review of structured group interventions with mentally disordered offenders made by Duncan et al 17 shows that the effectiveness of patient psychoeducation among forensic schizophrenia patients has been studied only by the naturalistic pilot study of Jennings et al 18 , who found positive a impact of brief patient group psychoeducation on knowledge, attitudes toward medication, and insight.…”

Sailing uncharted seas without a compass: A review of interventions in forensic mental health

“…Pooled effect sizes were calculated for groups of interventions with a similar focus and moderate to high treatment effects were obtained for problem-solving and anger/aggression management programs. However, Duncan et al (2006) emphasized that their findings should be interpreted with caution due to methodological limitations in most of the studies.…”

“…These are essentially applications of interventions developed for general psychiatric patients and non-mentally disordered offenders, some of which have been adapted in an attempt to make them more relevant and responsive to the complex needs of MDOs. Evaluation studies are beginning to appear in the forensic mental health literature; however, much of the research is small scale and/or appears to report on clinical practice, revealing the field's early stage of development (Duncan et al, 2006). Accordingly, robust generalizations about the efficacy of interventions used in a forensic mental health context cannot yet be made.…”

“…Duncan, Nicol, Ager, and Dalgleish (2006) presented the first systematic review of the efficacy of structured group interventions with MDOs, the majority of which were based on a cognitive-behavioral approach. The 20 studies that fitted their inclusion criteria were categorized according to four themes: problem-solving skills training, anger/aggression management, deliberate self-harm interventions, and other (e.g., social skills training, CBT for psychosis, moral reasoning).…”