Development of a measure to predict short-term violence in psychiatric populations: The Imminent Risk Rating Scale

The prediction of near-term violence among psychiatric inpatients has become an important goal in recent years. The Imminent Risk Rating Scale (IRRS) is a screening tool that has been designed to enhance clinicians' knowledge of their patients' risk of violence in the hours and days following evaluation. Drawing on the imminent-violence literature, the instrument includes 7 items touching on personal, interpersonal, and environmental variables that are uniquely predictive of short-term violence. The present study reports on the findings of a small-scale test of the effectiveness and psychometric properties of the IRRS among a sample of psychiatric inpatients (N = 121) undergoing pretrial forensic psychiatric evaluations. The measure has desirable interrater reliability, demonstrates robust improvement over chance in identifying which patients will engage in violence over a subsequent 2-week period, and is especially effective in identifying individuals who are not violent during that time period.