Risk för våld : Förändring i bedömd risk för framtida våld för rättspsykiatriska patienter dömda för dödligt våld eller misshandel

Sammanfattning: Abstract. Risk assessment for future violence is an important part of today's forensic psychiatry, and including dynamic risk factors in risk assessment is important because it has been shown that risk can change over time. However, previous research has suggested that perpetrators of homicide are different than perpetrators of other violent crimes. The aim of this study was to describe and analyze risk assessments of future violence for forensic psychiatric patients convicted for homicide (n = 45) and forensic psychiatric patients convicted for assault (n = 91). To do this, differences within the groups and between the groups were analyzed. The sample consisted of 114 men and 24 women between 16-71 years who have all been admitted to a forensic psychiatric hospital and assessed with the risk assessment instrument HCR-20 at least two times. It was unexpectedly shown that the patients convicted for homicide more often had a diagnosis of personality disorder, while the patients convicted of assault more often had some psychotic disorder. It was shown that there were very few differences between those convicted for homicide and those convicted for assault both at assessment 1 and assessment 2. Concerning change in assessed risk, the patients convicted for homicide changed very little while the patients convicted of homicide had decreased their assessed risk of future violence significantly on several factors. These results can be attributed to the diagnostic differences between the groups, and it is discussed that assessed risk of future violence is not dependent of what violent crime you are convicted for but on what diagnoses you have and how you respond to treatment. Finally, it is concluded that further research is needed to investigate if these unexpected diagnostic differences are really true, and in that case, why.