SynthesisEuropean psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists2018
Use of risk assessment instruments to predict violence in forensic psychiatric hospitals: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers, 9 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed, 9 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 124 citations in OpenAlex.
- Predictive Validity of Violence Screening Tools in Emergency and Psychiatric Services: A Systematic Review.Trauma, violence & abuse · 2026Pooled it
- Factors associated with aggressive behavior in patients with schizophrenia: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC psychology · 2026Pooled it
- Tools to predict imminent risk of patient perpetrated workplace violence in healthcare settings: an umbrella review.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- Systematic review of risk factors for violence in psychosis: 10-year update.The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science · 2025Pooled it
- Risk assessment for aggressive behaviour in schizophrenia.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Violence risk assessment instruments in forensic psychiatric populations: a systematic review and meta-analysis.The lancet. Psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Is mental health staff training in de-escalation techniques effective in reducing violent incidents in forensic psychiatric settings? - A systematic review of the literature.BMC psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled it
- The impact of machine learning in predicting risk of violence: A systematic review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Improving risk assessment in forensic mental health: Temporal validation and clinical refinement of the FoVOx risk tool.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2026Article
- The development of a cannabis risk assessment tool for patients with rheumatologic conditions: a Delphi study.Clinical rheumatology · 2026Article
- Advancing Psychiatric Safety With the Predictive Risk Identification for Mental Health Events Tool: Retrospective Cohort Study.JMIR mental health · 2026Article
- A review of progress in violence risk assessment methods.Forensic sciences research · 2025Review
- Low cholesterol and risk of violence in forensic inpatients with schizophrenia, personality disorder or dual diagnosis: same or different?European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2025Article
- Predictive Validity of the Brøset Violence Checklist in a Secured Institution for Offenders With Intellectual Disabilities.Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR · 2025Observational
- A pilot study on treatment content in virtual reality-assisted aggression therapy at a maximum-security forensic psychiatric clinic.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Dangerousness Index in Forensic Psychiatric Examination: A Tool for Aiding Medical Decision Regarding the Risk of Antisocial Acts.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Construction of a troublemaking risk assessment tool for patients with severe mental disorders in community of China.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Association between behavioral parameters of men in psychiatric emergency department video recording and subsequent violence in the psychiatric ward.BMC psychiatry · 2024Article
- Intervening factors between risk of violence and aggressive behaviours among forensic inpatients: a scoping review.BMC psychology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimsViolent behaviour by forensic psychiatric inpatients is common. We aimed to systematically review the performance of structured risk assessment tools for violence in these settings.
methodsThe 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.
resultsFifty-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.
interpretationThe 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.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.