title: The use of a screening device to assess psychopathy in young offenders.
abstract: The aim of this research was to determine to what extent a psychopath screening device (the APSD) is useful in forensic assessments to predict general and violent offending. For this purpose, a cross-sectional study was done and 238 young people serving a sentence were assessed. The gold standard instrument used to measure psychopathy was the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV; Forth, Kosson & Hare, 2003). The results indicate that the association found between the screening device scores and several indicators of risk is low if compared with those obtained with the PCL:YV, suggesting that it is less useful as a tool in order to predict offending or violent offences. However, an Area Under the Curve of .784 and a validity index of 62.5 support its use as a screening device or as a preliminary approach to assess psychopathy in this population. The usefulness of this instrument to make assessments with young people in the forensic setting is discussed.
authors: Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain.
authors: Teresa
authors: T
authors: Silva
authors: Genovés Vicente
authors: GV
authors: Garrido
authors: M José
authors: MJ
authors: López Latorre
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis*; D057237:Criminals / Q000523:psychology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007604:Juvenile Delinquency / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000295:instrumentation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D055815:Young Adult