Question

• What are the assessment tools often used by clinicians in violence risk assessment cases? o What is the most common tool used in these cases? o What type of tools are each (i.e., actuarial, SPJ, clinical, etc.)

Answer 1

Ramesh et al. (2028) conducted a meta-analysis and identified 11 most commonly used violence risk assessment instruments. Actuarial instruments included the Brøset Violence Checklist (BVC), the Classification of Violence Risk (COVR), the Dynamic Appraisal of Situational Aggression (DASA), the Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R), the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R), the Psychopathy Checklist Screening Version (PCL:SV), the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG) and the Violence Risk Scale (VRS). Structured professional judgement (SPJ) tools included the Historical Clinical Risk Management-20 (HCR-20), the Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START), and the Violence Risk Screening-10 (V-RISK-10). From these, the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised and the Historical, Clinical, Risk Management-20 were found to be the most commonly used instruments by practitioners.

References:

Ramesh, T., Igoumenou, A., Montes, M. and Fazel, S. (2018). Use of risk assessment instruments to predict violence in forensic psychiatric hospitals: a systematic review and meta-analysis, European Psychiatry, 52, 47-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eurpsy.2018.02.007.