Question

what are protective factors ? how do you use them to assess risk of violence?

Answer 1

Answer: predictive factors are conditions and attributes in individuals, families , communities or the larger society that help people to deal more effectively with stressful events and mitigate or eliminate risk in families and communities.

There is increasing interest in protective factors for violence risk and it has been proposed that consideration of protective factors in addition to risk factors may lead to more balance and accurate violence risk assessments.

Part-1. a systematic review of literature was conducted to explore the productive and incremental validity of protective factors assessed using structured professional judgement (SPJ) violence risk assessment tools. 18 studies were identified which reported predictive validity of protective factors for violent behaviour in adolescent and adult male using 5 different SPJ risk assessment tools.overall, most studies found that protective factors were associated with the absence of violence. the evidences to support the incremental validity of protective factors ( in addition to risk factors) was however less robust and most studies were identified and having a risk of bias which impacted on the potential of accuracy and generalisability of the findings.

Part-2. using a pseudo- perspective design. the predictive and incremental validity of protective factors explore using structured assessment of protective factors(SAPROF) and historical clinical risk management-20 (HCR-20V4) guidelines in a sample of 75 male patients in a high secure forensic mental health inpatient setting. The SAPROF was associated with the absence of different types of violence within Hospital setting. The SAPROF did not appear to significantly add to the predictive validity of the dynamic risk factors in the HCR-20V3. the integrative final risk judgement however demonstrated strong predictive validity and incremental validity in the prediction of behaviour.