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

Abstract

The generalizability of risk assessment measures to female populations remains up for debate; in particular, few studies have made direct comparisons between male and female civil psychiatric patients on protective factors and risk factors relevant to violence risk assessments. To address this gap in the literature, we conducted a prospective study with 102 civil psychiatric patients (60.8% male) to investigate strength-based risk assessments. Outcome data (i.e., verbal, physical, and sexual aggression) was collected after 6 and 12 months. We found a number of potentially interesting gender differences in the predictive validity of the START, HCR-20^V2, and SAPROF. Findings are generally supportive of the use of established Structured Professional Judgement (SPJ) risk assessment measures with male civil psychiatric populations, and with the exception of the START, caution is warranted when using these measures with female civil psychiatric patients. Findings suggest that SPJ assessments that utilize both strengths and vulnerabilities generally performed better than SPJ assessments relying on either strengths alone or vulnerabilities alone.