Predictive validity of the HCR-20 for violent and non-violent sexual behaviour in a secure mental health service.

Background: Violent and non-violent sexual behaviour is a fairly common problem among secure mental health service patients, but specialist sexual violence risk assessment is time-consuming and so performed infrequently.

Aims: We aimed to establish whether a commonly used violence risk assessment tool, the Health Clinical Risk management 20(HCR-20), has predictive validity specifically for inappropriate sexual behaviour.

Methods: A pseudo-prospective cohort design was used for a study in the adult wards of a large provider of specialist secure mental health services.