Das Wiener Instrument für Suizidgefahr in Haft

Abstract

As suicide rates in custody are higher than in the general population, and these rates have been increasing within the last 20 years, the screening of offenders newly admitted to prison for their propensity to suicide is necessary to give a better estimation of the suicide risk and hopefully to stop further increase of suicide rates in jails and prisons.

Suicidal ideation of prisoners

“…Daneben wurde mithilfe eines zu diesem Zweck erarbeiteten halbstrukturierten Interviewleitfadens die Einstellung und eigene Betroffenheit des Befragten bezüglich Suizidalität, mittels des Viennese Instrument for Suicidality in Correctional Institutions (VISCI; [13]) eine Abschätzung der Suizidalität vorgenommen. Daneben wurden ebenfalls die für Suizidalität relevanten haftspezifischen Fakten der Untersuchten (Haftart; Indexdelikt, Gesamthaftdauer, aktuelle Inhaftierungsdauer, Verlegungen in Haft und momentane Arbeit in Haft) erhoben.…”

The Distillation of “VISCI”: Towards a Better Identification of Suicidal Inmates

“…Cases and controls had been matched for sex, age, nationality, time of incarceration, correctional status, and institution. In a recent paper (Frottier et al, 2008), scores to estimate the suicide risk which were developed for pretrial and sentenced prisoners were published. As the VISCI contains additional questions for risk parameters, which were not result of the CCS, but from retrospective studies quoted in the literature, not all questions are currently given a score (we assume that in the future there will be more clarity about the sensible evaluation of all individual items on the basis of additional information from some questions answered by a very large group).…”

“…The VISCI‐scores are the sum of the coefficients which proved to be significant in the case‐control‐study (see Table 1). The sensitivity and specificity of the VISCI, which had been calculated through ROC‐analyses (receiver operation characteristic curve), proved to be very good in the VISCI‐generating sample (Frottier et al, 2008).…”

“…For all files of cases and controls, the VISCI was administered according to information available in the file. Two separate VISCI scores for pretrial and sentenced inmates were suggested by Frottier et al (2008), as the suicide risk proved to be different according to status of custody (Frottier, Fruehwald, et al, 2002). The methodology met the ethical criteria for evaluation in correctional institutions in Austria.…”

“…The intended result was that in the case of an existing risk clear and simple instructions should be given and that only in a high‐risk case a quick referral to psychiatric or psychological staff should take place. The instrument had to be brief and to be designed in a way that the number of wrongly positively identified inmates could be kept as low as possible (i.e., economically tolerable; Frottier, König, Matschnig, Seyringer, & Frühwald, 2008). The Viennese Instrument for Suicidality in Corrections Institutions (VISCI), a tool for identification and management of suicidal inmates in correctional institutions, mainly contains questions relating to risk parameters, which were collected from a retrospective case‐control study of judiciary files.…”