title: Assessing reliability, validity, and clinical utility of the BEST-Index in measuring living skills among forensic inpatients.
abstract: The assessment of behavioral change as a result of inpatient treatment in forensic psychiatry is an important precondition for violence risk prediction in forensic psychiatry. In relation to a multitude of diagnostically based risk assessment instruments, there is a shortage of appropriate instruments with which to carry out valid and reliable therapeutic assessments that are behaviorally based and therefore appropriate for use within varied psychiatric contexts. There is also a need for instruments which will offer assessors the opportunity to examine possible relationships between criteria of social risk and criteria of more general aspects of social functioning. Tapping the issues pointed out above, the authors present an overview of a normatively based social profiling instrument (the BEST-Index), and discuss evidence for its validity, reliability, and aspects of clinical utility.
authors.affiliation: Reichenau Psychiatric Centre and University of Ulm, Reichenau, Germany. thomas.ross@uni-ulm.de
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ross
authors.forename: Val
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Reed
authors.forename: María Isabel
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Fontao
authors.forename: Friedemann
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pfäfflin
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003134:Commitment of Persons with Psychiatric Disorders; D005260:Female; D005555:Forensic Psychiatry; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011329:Prisoners / Q000523:psychology*; D011581:Psychological Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012919:Social Behavior; D055815:Young Adult