Exploring Gender Differences in the Utility of Strength-Based Risk Assessment Measures

Assessing Protective Factors for Violence Risk in U.K. General Mental Health Services Using the Structured Assessment of Protective Factors

“…The relatively strong level of protective factors in the community sample here is actually lower than that reported for some inpatient forensic samples (Abidin et al, 2013;Davoren et al, 2013) but is comparable with another community sample surveyed by Yoon et al (2016), although the latter was an offender group. Both the forensic and general in-patient groups here are comparable with other forensic samples examined by Viljoen et al (2016) and Abbiati et al (2016) but somewhat stronger in terms of protective factors than others (de Vries Robbe et al, 2011; de Vries Robbe et al 2015).…”

“…The predictive validity of SAPROF Total for nonviolence over 6 months in both general inpatient and community outpatients here was moderate in size (Rice & Harris, 2005). As such it was comparable with that achieved by the SAPROF in some forensic samples reported by Viljoen and colleagues (2016), Yoon and colleagues (2011), Yoon and colleagues (2016), and Zeng et al (2015), but lower than that observed in other forensic settings (Abbiati et al, 2016; Abidin et al, 2013; Davoren et al, 2013; Persson et al, 2017) including the original high-security setting in which it was developed (de Vries Robbé et al, 2011; de Vries Robbé et al, 2015). The PCL-SV and HCR-20 were better predictors of violence with larger and significant AUC values (AUC > 0.6) in the general inpatient sample.…”

“…De Vries Robbé et al (2011) report good predictive validity for the SAPROF in relation to criminal recidivism at 1- and 2-year follow-ups in a sample of 126 Dutch patients released from a secure forensic mental health setting. It has since been subjected to further testing with sex offenders and other forensic groups in the Netherlands (de Vries Robbé et al, 2015) and more widely in Canada, Singapore, Ireland, and Germany (Abidin et al, 2013; Davoren et al, 2013; Doyle, 2014; Turner et al, 2014; Viljoen et al, 2016; Yoon, Spehr, & Briken, 2011; Zeng, Chu, & Lee, 2015). Results so far in these forensic setting studies are mixed but promising.…”

Gender-Sensitive Violence Risk Assessment: Predictive Validity of Six Tools in Female Forensic Psychiatric Patients

“…Not many studies have yet been conducted on the value of the START in female populations, but the results so far have shown good predictive accuracy in women (O'Shea & Dickens, 2015;Viljoen, Nicholls, greaves, de Ruiter, & Brink, 2011). Predictive accuracy of SPJ tools assessing protective factors was found to be lower in females compared with males (Viljoen et al, 2016). In the Structured Assessment of Protective Factors for violence risk (SAPROF; de Vogel, de Ruiter, Bouman, & de Vries Robbé, 2012), the most accurate predictors for abstention from violence differed.…”

“…Results for female patients were less strong. Viljoen et al (2016) examined protective factors measured with different tools (SAPROF, START) in civil psychiatric patients and concluded that SPJ tools utilizing both risk and protective factors performed better. gender was found to be a moderator in predicting severe aggression when using risk assessment tools.…”