Risk and protective factors in risk assessment: Predicting inpatient aggression in adult males detained in a forensic mental health setting.

Structured clinical risk assessments represent a preferred means of assessing levels of aggression risk at different times and in different individuals. Increasing attention has been given to capturing protective factors, with sound risk assessment critical to high-secure forensic mental health care. The aim was to assess the predictive value of the HCR-20 for aggression risk and the long-term care pilot version of the SAPROF (the SAPROF-LC-pilot) in a high-secure forensic mental health inpatient population and to determine the incremental value of protective over risk factors.

The Structured Assessment of Protective Factors for violence risk (SAPROF): A meta-analysis of its predictive and incremental validity.

Although the inclusion of protective factors in risk assessment is believed to improve prediction, most risk assessment tools emphasize risk factors. In response, the Structured Assessment of Protective Factors for violence risk (SAPROF) has been developed, which focuses exclusively on protective factors and is used in conjunction with a structured risk assessment tool. It has received increasing attention from both researchers and forensic mental health practitioners, and additional versions have been developed for use with adolescents (SAPROF-YV) and sex offenders (SAPROF-SO).