An Efficient Measure of Sexual Interest in Children: The Revised Screening Scale for Pedophilic Interests (SSPI-2)

This study examined the convergent, divergent, predictive, and incremental validity of the Revised Screening Scale for Pedophilic Interests (SSPI-2) in a sample of 264 men adjudicated for sexual offenses against at least one child under the age of 15. We found evidence of construct validity as the SSPI-2 had small to medium correlations with phallometric testing (r = .31), recorded pedohebephilic diagnoses (r = .52), and attitudes tolerant of sexual offending against children (r = .23), in addition to small and non-significant correlations with the PCL-R (r = -.07), VRAG-R (r = -.09), BARR-2002R (r = -.06), and conduct disorder (r = -.07). As indicated by DeLong tests, the SSPI-2 was a better predictor of 5-year sexual (Z = -2.44) and non-contact sexual recidivism (Z = -2.46) than the SSPI. The SSPI-2 also added incremental predictive accuracy to risk tools such as the BARR-2002R, PCL-R, VRAG-R, and Static-99R. Overall, our findings suggest that the SSPI-2 is a valid measure of sexual interest in children and may be useful as a screening tool to help inform prioritization and management.