An adapted version of the Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration Study (PFS-AV) for the measurement of hostility in violent forensic psychiatric patients.

Background: The original Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration Study (PFS), designed to measure reactive aggressive behaviour in adults, contains 24 pictures of ambiguous situations in which someone is making a remark that can be interpreted as provocative.

Aim: An adapted version of Rosenzweig's PFS (PFS-AV) was developed to assess the hostile thoughts elicited by interpersonal frustrating situations in forensic psychiatric patients with a conduct disorder or an antisocial personality disorder.

Methods: Patients were asked to give their responses in a few words on paper, which were then evaluated for hostility using a seven-point Likert scale. The patients also completed questionnaires on personality and on aggressive and socially competent behaviour.

Results: Twelve of the 24 pictures that had a good internal consistency, inter-rater reliability, and test-retest reliability were selected. In support of the instrument's concurrent validity, scores on the PFS-AV were positively correlated with those on the aggressive behaviour questionnaires but less strongly than the correlations between the aggressive behaviour questionnaires mutually. The validity of the PFS-AV was demonstrated by the positive correlation between PFS-AV hostility and neuroticism, and by the negative correlation with extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. A relatively low but positive correlation was found with social anxiety and a negative correlation was found with social skills in situations where approaching behaviour may be exhibited.

Conclusion: The adapted version of the PFS-AV appears reliably and validly to measure hostility in violent forensic psychiatric patients.