title: Relevance of interrater agreement to violence risk assessment.
abstract: This study considered whether assessments of violence risk in which 2 clinicians reach similar conclusions are more accurate than the conclusions of either clinician alone when their assessments disagree. One hundred ten physicians and 44 nurses estimated the probability of physical assault of 478 patients admitted to a short-term locked psychiatric inpatient unit. The level of assessed risk showed a substantial correspondence with the likelihood of later violence when the physician and nurse ratings were highly concordant. As the extent of agreement between the physician and nurse ratings decreased, the strength of the association between the risk assessments and the occurrence of violence decreased accordingly.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco 94143-0984, USA.
authors.forename: D E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: McNiel
authors.forename: J N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Lam
authors.forename: R L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Binder
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D010343:Patient Admission; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011567:Psychiatric Department, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D018570:Risk Assessment; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*