An empirical investigation of written risk communication in forensic psychiatric evaluations

Abstract

There has been an increased interest in approaches for improving violence risk assessment, but less so how to communicate risk assessment results. We studied the written risk communication of 142 cases of forensic psychiatric evaluations in Sweden. The results suggested that risk for criminal recidivism was communicated in the vast majority of the cases (122 out of 142), but that risk was primarily communicated when the risk was perceived to be high. A six-item protocol to assess the content of the risk communication suggested that the communication was well elaborated in 21/122 of the cases, moderately elaborated in 53/122, poorly or very poorly elaborated in 43/122, and non-elaborated in 5/122 of the cases. Level of elaboration was only vaguely related to sociodemographic characteristics pertaining to the assessed (sex, age, citizenship) and the type of crime committed, but highly correlated to clinical diagnoses (DSM-IV) as well as contextual factors of the evaluation (which professional group and which clinic the assessment was performed).