International survey of violence risk assessment practices

International audience; Objective Mental health professionals are routinely called upon to assess the violence risk presented by their patients, frequently aided by structured instruments. Though surveys of risk assessment and management have been conducted, these efforts have been largely circumscribed to individual countries and have not compared the practices of members of different professional disciplines. Method A web-based survey was developed to examine the international use of structured instruments in the violence risk assessment process across five continents and to compare the perceived utility of such instruments by psychologists, psychiatrists, and nurses. The survey was trans…