Examining Clinician Differences that Influence Ratings of the
Probability of Harm and Rehospitalization on a Standard Dangerousness
Assessment
Christina M. Harris
University of Nebraska –
Lincoln
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Method
Subjects
A written
questionnaire was mailed to all 1,487 members of Division 41 of the American
Psychological Association, the American Psychology-Law Society. Completed
questionnaires were returned by 470 individuals, a response rate of 42.6%.
Seventy-two percent (n=339) were males and twenty-eight percent (n=131) were
female at an average age of 49 years old with the youngest age recorded at 18
and the oldest at 85. The average year in which participants received their
doctorate was 1978 and 86.4% (n=406) were currently in clinical practice, 9.1%
(n=43) of participants had previously been in clinical practice, and 1.9% (9)
had never been in clinical practice but were excluded from analyses.
Materials
The 1997
Dangerousness Survey consisted of four case summaries representing a variety of
disorders and a range of potential dangerousness. The cases were in the form of
one-page discharge summaries taken from the records of actual patients
discharged in 1996 from an inpatient facility in the northeastern United States
and included information about the history of the present illness, family and
social history, mental status examination, and hospital course (Slovic, Monahan, & MacGregor, 2000).
Procedure
The questionnaire
was mailed to members of Division 41 of the American Psychological Association,
the American Psychology-Law Society The questionnaire asked respondents to
assume the role of a psychiatrist in an outpatient clinic who is evaluating a
person recently released from inpatient hospitalization. Four questions were
then asked about each case summary pertaining to likelihood of harm, risk,
monitoring, and rehospitalization and the present
study primarily focuses on probability of harm ratings and probability of rehospitalization ratings. In addition to the survey,
several demographic questions were asked as well as “How frequently do you provide assessments
of “dangerousness as part of your practice?” and “How useful do you find these
types of assessments for making decisions about a patient?” Frequency was split into three groups
including never/rarely, monthly, and weekly. Usefulness ratings were split into
two groups, those with low usefulness ratings found these assessments not
–slightly useful whereas those with high usefulness ratings found these
assessment somewhat-very useful. Probability of harm ratings and probability of
rehospitalization ratings were aggregated across the
four cases.
Index Introduction Results Discussion Table 1 Table 2 Table 3 Figure 1 Figure 2 References