Predictive validity of judgments of dangerousness in emergency civil commitment

The authors investigated the predictive validity of judgments of dangerousness made in the context of emergency civil commitment. The medical charts of 101 consecutive patients involuntarily admitted to a university-based acute inpatient unit were reviewed for evidence of violence within the first 72 hours of hospitalization. More than two-thirds of the patients committed as a danger to others engaged in some type of violence, compared with fewer than one-third of other involuntary patients. The findings suggest that the emergency commitment situation permits judgments of dangerousness with a relatively high degree of short-term predictive validity.