Assessing Reliability, Validity, and Clinical Utility of the BEST-Index in Measuring Living Skills Among Forensic Inpatients

• NCJ Number: 239723
• Journal: International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology Volume: 56 Issue: 3 Dated: May 2012 Pages: 385-400
• Author(s): Thomas Ross; Val Reed; Maria Isabel Fontao; Friedemann Pfäfflin
• Date Published: May 2012
• Length: 16 pages
• Grant Number(s): QLG5-CT-2001-01045
• Sponsoring Agency: European Cmssn
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study presents an overview of a normatively based social profiling instrument (the BEST-Index), and discuss evidence for its validity, reliability, and aspects of clinical utility.

Abstract

The assessment of behavioral change as a result of inpatient treatment in forensic psychiatry is an important precondition for violence risk prediction in forensic psychiatry. In relation to a multitude of diagnostically based risk assessment instruments, there is a shortage of appropriate instruments with which to carry out valid and reliable therapeutic assessments that are behaviorally based and therefore appropriate for use within varied psychiatric contexts. There is also a need for instruments which will offer assessors the opportunity to examine possible relationships between criteria of social risk and criteria of more general aspects of social functioning. Tapping the issues pointed out above, the authors present an overview of a normatively based social profiling instrument (the BEST-Index), and discuss evidence for its validity, reliability, and aspects of clinical utility. Abstract published by arrangement with Sage Journals.