Psychopathy as a bipolar construct: Testing the risk-promotive status of the four psychopathy checklist-revised/screening version facet scores in six clinical samples.

This study tested the possibility that the four facets of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised/Screening Version (PCL-R/SV) serve as bipolar constructs in predicting future criminal justice outcomes. Organizing scores on the four facets (Interpersonal, Affective, Lifestyle, and Antisocial) into three categories-that is, lowest 25% of cases (best category), highest 25% of cases (worst category), and middle 50% of cases (intermediate category)-we tested bipolarity by crossing the three categories with a dichotomized crime/violence outcome and calculating both promotive (best category vs. worst + intermediate categories) and risk (worst category vs.

Unfeeling or Uncontrolled? PCL-R Subfactor-Specific Anomalies in Psychological Processing During Criminal Behavior.

Psychopathy has been linked to insensitivity to negative affect as well as to a self-regulatory deficit. However, studies on these associations rarely involve real-life behavioral data. Using a theory-based content analysis of offense descriptions in criminal verdicts, the affective and regulatory processes that male German prison inmates ( = 109) displayed during criminal norm-violations were coded.

A 12-month randomised pilot trial of the Alzheimer's and music therapy study: a feasibility assessment of music therapy and physical activity in patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease.

Background: The Alzheimer's and Music Therapy (ALMUTH) study is the first randomised controlled trial (RCT) design with 12 months of active non-pharmacological therapy (NPT) implementing music therapy (MT) and physical activity (PA) for participants with Alzheimer's disease (AD). The aim of the present article is to retrospectively examine the inclusion of mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's Disease patients into the main ALMUTH study protocol and to determine if continued inclusion of AD patients is warranted.

Methods: The randomised pilot trial was conducted as a parallel three-arm RCT, reflecting the experimental design of the ALMUTH study.

Effectiveness of social-therapeutic treatment for serious offenders in juvenile detention: A quasi-experimental study of recidivism.

Due to legislative changes in Germany, there has been an increasing expansion of social-therapeutic facilities for juvenile offenders over the past 15 years. Social therapy comprises an eclectic mix of psychotherapeutic, educational, vocational, and recreational measures in a milieu-therapeutic setting to reduce recidivism of high-risk violent and sexual offenders. This study examined the effectiveness of social-therapeutic treatment on post-release recidivism among juvenile offenders.

Targeting Misconduct in Prison by Modifying Occupational Factors in Correctional Facilities.

Misconduct in prison is a phenomenon, which by its nature is hard to observe. Little is known about its origins and its modifiability. This study presents data on the level of misconduct in prison perceived by staff members and examines its impact on occupational factors.

A Person-Centered Approach to Prison Behavior Based on Officers' Observations: Relations to Risk, Prison Misconduct, and Recidivism.

Incorporating measures of prison behavior into risk assessment and management procedures may assist in treatment planning, risk monitoring, and decision-making. A behavior rating scale was used to assess prison officers' observations on externalizing, internalizing, and adaptive behavior in a sample of 277 sexual and violent offenders in correctional treatment in Berlin, Germany. The present study employed latent profile analysis to identify inmate subtypes with similar behavioral patterns.

Let's Work Together - Occupational Factors and Their Correlates to Prison Climate and Inmates' Attitudes Towards Treatment.

The role of psychosocial and structural occupational factors in mental health service provision has broadly been researched. However, less is known about the influence of employees' occupational factors on inmates in correctional treatment settings that mostly seek to apply a milieu-therapeutic approach. Therefore, the present study investigated the relationships between occupational factors (job satisfaction, self-efficacy, and the functionality of the organizational structure) and prison climate, the number of staff members' sick days as well as inmates' treatment motivation.

A Latent Profile Analysis of Violent Offenders Based on PCL-R Factor Scores: Criminogenic Needs and Recidivism Risk.

Clinicians and theorists have often proposed the two psychopathic subtypes of "primary" and "secondary" psychopathy, with recent research indicating some empirical support for both psychopathy subtypes, though the findings across studies are far from uniform. For the current study, latent profile analysis was used to investigate if homogeneous latent classes exist within a sample of 215 adult male violent offenders from Berlin, Germany. The age of the offenders at the time of the index offense ranged from 19 to 59 years.

Predicting Offenders' Institutional Misconduct and Recidivism: The Utility of Behavioral Ratings by Prison Officers.

Measures of current behavior are rarely incorporated into risk assessment. Therefore, the current study used a behavior rating scale to assess prison officers' observations of inmates prison behavior and examined the contribution of these ratings for risk assessment. Prison officers rated 272 sexual and violent offenders in three different correctional treatment facilities in Berlin, Germany.

Executive functions and health behaviors associated with the leading causes of death in the United States: A systematic review.

Research indicates that executive functioning may predict health behavior. This systematic review provides an overview of the relationship between domains of executive functioning and health behaviors associated with the leading causes of death in the United States. A total of 114 articles met the inclusion criteria (adult sample, published in English between 1990 and November 2016) and were reviewed and synthesized.

Prison Climate and Its Role in Reducing Dynamic Risk Factors During Offender Treatment.

Although several offender treatment experts have suggested that therapeutic relationships play an important role in offender treatment, empirical finding supporting those arguments are scarce. The present study has therefore examined the relationship between prison climate, treatment motivation, and their influence on changes in risk factors in N = 215 inmates and detainees in four correctional facilities in Berlin, Germany. The inmates' perception of prison climate significantly correlated with their attitudes towards treatment.

Analyze This! Thematic Analysis: Hostility, Attribution of Intent, and Interpersonal Perception Bias.

Research suggests that aggressive individuals exhibit a strong tendency to attribute hostile intent to the behavior of others when confronted with an ambiguous social situation. The vignettes method has become a standard procedure to assess hostile attributions. Vignettes represent incomplete ambiguous social stories, in which the subjects experience a negative outcome and are asked to attribute intent to the provocateur's action.

It is Written in Your Eyes: Hostile Attributions and Self-Directed Gaze Perception in Incarcerated Violent Adolescent Male Offenders.

To date, we have frugal knowledge about the hostile attribution bias (HAB) and the biased gaze perception in violent adolescent offenders. This however is a major contributing factor in understanding delinquent behavior. Using a computer-based approach, presenting faces modulated in gaze direction (0°, 2°, 4°, 6°, 8°) and valence (angry, fearful, happy, neutral), the present study examined the impact of HAB of the feeling of being stared at in a sample of 27 adolescent offenders (aged 17-24 years).

Mental and Emotional Self-Help Technology Apps: Cross-Sectional Study of Theory, Technology, and Mental Health Behaviors.

Background: Mental and emotional self-help apps have emerged as potential mental illness prevention and treatment tools. The health behavior theory mechanisms by which these apps influence mental health-related behavior change have not been thoroughly examined.

Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the association between theoretical behavior change mechanisms and use of mental and emotional self-help apps and whether the use of such apps is associated with mental health behaviors.

Mass mortalities of unknown aetiology in Pacific oysters Crassostrea gigas in Port Stephens, New South Wales, Australia.

From January to June 2013 and November to January 2014, mass mortalities were reported in Pacific oysters Crassostrea gigas cultivated in Port Stephens estuary, New South Wales, Australia. In some cases, 100% mortality was reported in both triploid and diploid C. gigas, although native species of oyster cultivated in the same areas remained unaffected.

Acquaintance Rape: Applying Crime Scene Analysis to the Prediction of Sexual Recidivism.

The aim of the current study was to enhance the assessment and predictive accuracy of risk assessments for sexual offenders by utilizing detailed crime scene analysis (CSA). CSA was conducted on a sample of 247 male acquaintance rapists from Berlin (Germany) using a nonmetric, multidimensional scaling (MDS) Behavioral Thematic Analysis (BTA) approach. The age of the offenders at the time of the index offense ranged from 14 to 64 years (M = 32.

[Effectiveness of aftercare treatment after release from prison: A first evaluation of the forensic therapeutic outpatient clinic for serious violent and sexual offenders in Berlin].

Background: The Forensic Therapeutic Outpatient Clinic (FTA) in Berlin targets the professional aftercare treatment of classified high-risk violent and sexual offenders released from prison or forensic psychiatric hospitals.

Patients And Methods: A comparison sample (n = 32) matched to the patients of the FTA (complete survey n = 32) according to similar criminal histories and diagnoses (ICD-10) was collected from offenders released from prison and forensic psychiatry at a time before the FTA was established. The focus of the study was on recidivism measured by complaints received by police departments during the follow-up period.

The development of the crime scene behavior risk measure for sexual offense recidivism.

The inclusion of crime scene behavior in actuarial risk assessment so far is insufficient, unsystematic, and neglecting factors theoretically relevant to sexual recidivism. Therefore, the goal of the current study was to develop a brief actuarial risk scale based on crime scene characteristics. The development sample consisted of data (police databases, paper records, and the National Conviction Registry) from 955 male sexual offenders (77% German citizens, 20% foreign nationals, mean age = 35 years, convicted for sexual abuse and/or sexual violence).

Interpreting multiple risk scales for sex offenders: evidence for averaging.

This study tested 3 decision rules for combining actuarial risk instruments for sex offenders into an overall evaluation of risk. Based on a 9-year follow-up of 940 adult male sex offenders, we found that Rapid Risk Assessment for Sex Offender Recidivism (RRASOR), Static-99R, and Static-2002R predicted sexual, violent, and general recidivism and provided incremental information for the prediction of all 3 outcomes. Consistent with previous findings, the incremental effect of RRASOR was positive for sexual recidivism but negative for violent and general recidivism.

Clinical Value of an Ambulatory-Based Antibiogram for Uropathogens in Children.

Unnecessarily broad-spectrum antibiotic prescribing for ambulatory pediatric urinary tract infection may result from clinicians not having antibiograms specific to this population. Comparing an existing hospital-based with a proposed ambulatory uropathogen antibiogram for children in Utah, Escherichia coli accounted for a larger percentage and was more susceptible to narrower-spectrum antibiotics, demonstrating the potential need for ambulatory pediatric antibiograms.

Chronic eczematous eruptions in the aging: further support for an association with exposure to calcium channel blockers.

Importance: Dermatologists frequently encounter patients of advanced age presenting with chronic eczematous eruptions of uncertain etiology. When a drug-induced cutaneous eruption is suspected, identifying the responsible drug(s) is a complex clinical challenge.

Objective: To determine whether certain drug classes, and in particular calcium channel blockers, are associated with chronic eczematous eruptions in the aging (CEEA) in the United States.

Applying crime scene analysis to the prediction of sexual recidivism in stranger rapes.

The current study sought to improve the predictive accuracy of sexual recidivism using the Static-99 risk assessment tool by the addition of detailed crime scene analysis (CSA). CSA was carried out using a Behavioral Thematic Analysis (BTA) approach, the gold-standard in CSA. BTA was conducted on a sample of 167 stranger rape cases using nonmetric multidimensional scaling (MDS).

Cutaneous lupus erythematosus.

Cutaneous lupus erythematosus is a heterogeneous autoimmune condition that can significantly impact quality of life. Treatment is focused on reducing clinical inflammation and preventing scarring. The choice of treatment should be guided based on the severity of disease.

The Rudolph sign of nasal vestibular furunculosis: questions raised by this common but under-recognized nasal mucocutaneous disorder.

Nasal vestibular furunculosis is a mucocutaneous disorder commonly seen in the general population. Despite its prevalence in clinical practice, it has been inconsistently described and labeled in the medical literature. We present a case of nasal vestibular furunculosis presenting as recurrent exquisitely tender unilateral erythema and edema of the nasal tip (i.

The significance of offending behavior for predicting sexual recidivism among sex offenders of various age groups.

Based on a sample of 682 male sex offenders, this study investigated variables of the offending behavior for predicting sexual recidivism in different age groups. The sex offenders were allocated into four age groups. For each group, those characteristics of offending behavior showing a significant bivariate correlation with sexual recidivism were extracted.