Clinical Decision Making About Psychopathy and Violence Risk Assessment in Public Sector Mental Health Settings
Although there has been extensive research on psychopathy, it is unknown how, or whether, clinicians in public sector mental health settings consider the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL) for assessing violence risk. Mental health clinicians (N = 135) from 4 facilities were interviewed by using multiple methods for collecting data on decision making. Participants considered clinical information most often when assessing violence risk, indicating that these data were most readily available. Clinicians perceived formal testing results (e.g., PCL) to be least available and considered testing least often, especially if clinicians had less clinical experience. Participants did not explicitly report using the PCL but did implicitly rely on psychopathy factors when assessing violence risk. Clinicians in crisis settings reported less availability of historical data typically needed for the PCL. The data point to specific ways to improve the clinical practice of violence risk assessment in public mental health settings. © 2005 Educational Publishing Foundation.
Duke Scholars
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- Psychiatry
- 5205 Social and personality psychology
- 5203 Clinical and health psychology
- 5201 Applied and developmental psychology
- 1701 Psychology
Citation
Published In
DOI
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- Psychiatry
- 5205 Social and personality psychology
- 5203 Clinical and health psychology
- 5201 Applied and developmental psychology
- 1701 Psychology