Expert approaches to communicating violence risk

There has been virtually no empirical study of the way in which evaluating clinicians communicate their conclusions about the risk of violence toward others. Risk communication has become particularly important in recent year s, sewing as the link between empirical data from recent studies and the un derstanding and use of such data by evaluators and decision makers, The pre sent study considered how psychologists and psychiatrists, identified as ex perts in violence risk assessment, responded to eight vignettes that system atically measured preferences for risk communication. The vignettes involve d the presentation of the following factors in a 2 X 2 X 2 within-subjects design, counterbalanced for order: (1) risk model (prediction us, managemen t), (2) risk level (high us, low risk of the individual being assessed), an d (3) risk factors (the predominance of static us, dynamic risk factors). A total of 71 individuals (41 psychologists, 2 sociologists, and 28 psychiat rists) responded to a survey mailed to 100 individuals, for a response rate of 71%. Participants were asked to rate the value of six forms of risk com munication for each of the eight vignettes. There were few significant diff erences between the ratings assigned by psychologists and those assigned by psychiatrists. The most highly valued form of risk communication involved identifying risk factors applicable to the individual and specifying interv entions to reduce risk. A repeated-measures multivariate analysis of varian ce yielded a main effect for risk level and an interaction between risk lev el and risk factors. The implications of these findings for research and pr actice are discussed.