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Use of risk assessment instruments to predict violence in forensic psychiatric hospitals: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Taanvi Ramesh
Affiliation:
aDepartment of Psychiatry University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Artemis Igoumenou
Affiliation:
bConsultant Forensic Psychiatrist, Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust, UK
Maria Vazquez Montes
Affiliation:
cNuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Seena Fazel*
Affiliation:
aDepartment of Psychiatry University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
*
*Corresponding author at: Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital, Oxford OX3 7JX, UK E-mail address: seena.fazel@psych.ox.ac.uk

Abstract

Background and Aims:

Violent behaviour by forensic psychiatric inpatients is common. We aimed to systematically review the performance of structured risk assessment tools for violence in these settings.

Methods:

The nine most commonly used violence risk assessment instruments used in psychiatric hospitals were examined. A systematic search of five databases (CINAHL, Embase, Global Health, PsycINFO and PubMed) was conducted to identify studies examining the predictive accuracy of these tools in forensic psychiatric inpatient settings. Risk assessment instruments were separated into those designed for imminent (within 24 hours) violence prediction and those designed for longer-term prediction. A range of accuracy measures and descriptive variables were extracted. A quality assessment was performed for each eligible study using the QUADAS-2. Summary performance measures (sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, diagnostic odds ratio, and area under the curve value) and HSROC curves were produced. In addition, meta-regression analyses investigated study and sample effects on tool performance.

Results:

Fifty-two eligible publications were identified, of which 43 provided information on tool accuracy in the form of AUC statistics. These provided data on 78 individual samples, with information on 6,840 patients. Of these, 35 samples (3,306 patients from 19 publications) provided data on all performance measures. The median AUC value for the wider group of 78 samples was higher for imminent tools (AUC 0.83; IQR: 0.71–0.85) compared with longer-term tools (AUC 0.68; IQR: 0.62-0.75). Other performance measures indicated variable accuracy for imminent and longer-term tools. Meta-regression indicated that no study or sample-related characteristics were associated with between-study differences in AUCs.

Interpretation:

The performance of current tools in predicting risk of violence beyond the first few days is variable, and the selection of which tool to use in clinical practice should consider accuracy estimates. For more imminent violence, however, there is evidence in support of brief scalable assessment tools.

Information

Type
Original article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an open access article under the CC BY license
Copyright
Copyright © European Psychiatric Association 2018
Figure 0

Table 1 Characteristics of the nine included violence risk assessment instruments.

Figure 1

Table 2 Descriptive and demographic characteristics of samples for imminent and longer-term instruments included in the full meta-analysis (k = 35).

Figure 2

Table 3 Summary accuracy estimates produced by two categories of violence risk assessment instruments.

Figure 3

Fig 1. Summary receiver operating characteristics (SROC) curve from bivariate analysis of imminent violence risk assessment instruments for forensic inpatient violence.Note: Summary operating point = best fit for sensitivity and specificity. 95% confidence contour represents within-study heterogeneity. 95% prediction contour represents between-study heterogeneity.

Figure 4

Fig 2. Summary receiver operating characteristics (SROC) curve from bivariate analysis of longer-term violence risk assessment instruments for forensic inpatient violence.Note: Summary operating point = best fit for sensitivity and specificity. 95% confidence contour represents within-study heterogeneity. 95% prediction contour represents between-study heterogeneity.

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